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Rick Scott: Florida Suing Federal Government Over Voter Purge
Posted: 06/11/2012 5:15 pm Updated: 06/12/2012 11:01 am
Two weeks after Florida defied a U.S. Department of Justice order to stop trying to purge as many as 182,000 people it suspects are non-citizens from voter rolls, the state and U.S. governments both fired the legal equivalent of live rounds Monday.
The Justice Department said it will sue Florida in federal court for violating two federal laws that prevent states from suppressing voters. The state will be subject to "enforcement action," the agency said in a curtly worded letter. Hours earlier, Florida filed a lawsuit of its own against the federal government. Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who oversees elections, sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, accusing the agency of denying access to a federal database with information about immigrants. The lawsuit claims the federal agency forced the state to run afoul of at least one of the two federal voting laws the Justice Department accuses it of flouting.
The lawsuits set in motion a formal legal battle between the state and federal governments and could unleash a protracted and politicized struggle between Florida and outside advocacy groups. The conflict will almost certainly restore the glare of national attention on a state elections apparatus disgraced for its role in the 2000 presidential election.
“This is now the showdown over democracy at the O.K. Corral," said Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project, a Washington-based voting rights group that plans to sue Florida. The Justice Department "warned the state and they won't listen, so it's time for enforcement against the recalcitrant governor."
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, ordered the purge of suspected non-U.S. citizens from state voter rolls and defended it again Monday amid growing outcry. Accusations have flown that the purge is a Republican-led effort to disqualify minority voters likely to support President Barack Obama in November. Others say Obama's Justice Department has intentionally blocked the purge for political purposes.
“It appears that the State of Florida is unwilling to conform its behavior to the requirements of federal law,” wrote Thomas Perez, assistant U.S. attorney general and head of the federal law enforcement agency's Civil Rights Division. ... The significant problems you are encountering in administering this new program are of your own creation."
The Justice Department letter accuses the state of violating two laws. One, the Voting Rights Act, was put in place in 1965 to protect black and Latino voters who had faced poll taxes, literacy tests, alternative voting times or facilities. The law requires five Florida counties, along with a handful of mostly Southern states with histories of voter discrimination, to seek federal approval before changing voting policies or procedures. More than 60 percent of the voters declared suspect in Florida are black or Latino, according to a Miami-Herald analysis.
A second federal law, the National Voter Registration Act, requires states to make efforts to maintain accurate voter rolls. It also forbids states from removing voters from their rolls within 90 days of a federal election. Florida holds a congressional primary in August and the presidential election in November. The 90-day window began May 16, according to the Justice Department.
Florida officials continued to insist that the purge is legal and motivated by honorable intentions. The federal government is blocking the state's efforts to make sure the votes of citizens aren't diluted by the votes of non-citizens, they said.
“We just received the letter from DOJ, and are reviewing it,” Chris Cate, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office, wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. "However, we remain committed to ensuring the accuracy of Florida’s voter rolls, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it is our statutory responsibility.”
It's unclear whether the legal fight will affect this fall's election. Election supervisors in all but one of the state's 67 counties -- the local officials who would be directly responsible for purging voter rolls -- have refused to participate, citing errors in the state's list of suspected non-citizens.
Earlier this year, election officials mailed warning letters to about 3,000 of the suspected 182,000 non-citizens, asking for proof of citizenship. Florida officials said they found 87 non-citizens on the voter rolls, including 47 who have voted.
The list also included more than 500 citizens. The suspected non-citizens included dead voters already removed from the rolls, natural-born U.S. citizens, people who were naturalized and registered to vote after applying for a driver’s license and a World War II veteran who was forced to prove his citizenship.
The state blamed problems on the Department of Homeland Security, saying the federal citizenship database would allow the state to tune its attempt to match voting rolls with drivers' license information for immigration data.
“We have a right to this database,” Gov. Scott said Monday on Fox News’ Your World Cavuto show.
Florida has asked for access to the database since at least September and has received no response from Homeland Security, Detzner told the Justice Department earlier this month. Detzner has described the database roadblock as part of a federal conspiracy to illegally quash Florida’s purge.
Perez, the Justice Department official, said in his letter Monday that the state was advised by its own drivers' license agency eight months ago that the immigration database operates according to rules designed to prevent mistaken identity and probably won't help the voter purge. The database does not include information on U.S. citizens born inside the country. Queries also must include the name, date of birth and the unique identification number assigned to every legal immigrant, refugee or American citizen born abroad. In many cases, Florida does not have these identification numbers.
The American Civil Liberties Union, a left-leaning legal advocacy organization, filed suit against Florida on Friday. A conservative advocacy and research organization, Judicial Watch, has promised to sue Florida and other key states with large number of electoral college votes if they do not continue efforts to eliminate ineligible voters from their rolls.
Posted: 06/11/2012 5:15 pm Updated: 06/12/2012 11:01 am
Two weeks after Florida defied a U.S. Department of Justice order to stop trying to purge as many as 182,000 people it suspects are non-citizens from voter rolls, the state and U.S. governments both fired the legal equivalent of live rounds Monday.
The Justice Department said it will sue Florida in federal court for violating two federal laws that prevent states from suppressing voters. The state will be subject to "enforcement action," the agency said in a curtly worded letter. Hours earlier, Florida filed a lawsuit of its own against the federal government. Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who oversees elections, sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, accusing the agency of denying access to a federal database with information about immigrants. The lawsuit claims the federal agency forced the state to run afoul of at least one of the two federal voting laws the Justice Department accuses it of flouting.
The lawsuits set in motion a formal legal battle between the state and federal governments and could unleash a protracted and politicized struggle between Florida and outside advocacy groups. The conflict will almost certainly restore the glare of national attention on a state elections apparatus disgraced for its role in the 2000 presidential election.
“This is now the showdown over democracy at the O.K. Corral," said Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project, a Washington-based voting rights group that plans to sue Florida. The Justice Department "warned the state and they won't listen, so it's time for enforcement against the recalcitrant governor."
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, ordered the purge of suspected non-U.S. citizens from state voter rolls and defended it again Monday amid growing outcry. Accusations have flown that the purge is a Republican-led effort to disqualify minority voters likely to support President Barack Obama in November. Others say Obama's Justice Department has intentionally blocked the purge for political purposes.
“It appears that the State of Florida is unwilling to conform its behavior to the requirements of federal law,” wrote Thomas Perez, assistant U.S. attorney general and head of the federal law enforcement agency's Civil Rights Division. ... The significant problems you are encountering in administering this new program are of your own creation."
The Justice Department letter accuses the state of violating two laws. One, the Voting Rights Act, was put in place in 1965 to protect black and Latino voters who had faced poll taxes, literacy tests, alternative voting times or facilities. The law requires five Florida counties, along with a handful of mostly Southern states with histories of voter discrimination, to seek federal approval before changing voting policies or procedures. More than 60 percent of the voters declared suspect in Florida are black or Latino, according to a Miami-Herald analysis.
A second federal law, the National Voter Registration Act, requires states to make efforts to maintain accurate voter rolls. It also forbids states from removing voters from their rolls within 90 days of a federal election. Florida holds a congressional primary in August and the presidential election in November. The 90-day window began May 16, according to the Justice Department.
Florida officials continued to insist that the purge is legal and motivated by honorable intentions. The federal government is blocking the state's efforts to make sure the votes of citizens aren't diluted by the votes of non-citizens, they said.
“We just received the letter from DOJ, and are reviewing it,” Chris Cate, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office, wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. "However, we remain committed to ensuring the accuracy of Florida’s voter rolls, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it is our statutory responsibility.”
It's unclear whether the legal fight will affect this fall's election. Election supervisors in all but one of the state's 67 counties -- the local officials who would be directly responsible for purging voter rolls -- have refused to participate, citing errors in the state's list of suspected non-citizens.
Earlier this year, election officials mailed warning letters to about 3,000 of the suspected 182,000 non-citizens, asking for proof of citizenship. Florida officials said they found 87 non-citizens on the voter rolls, including 47 who have voted.
The list also included more than 500 citizens. The suspected non-citizens included dead voters already removed from the rolls, natural-born U.S. citizens, people who were naturalized and registered to vote after applying for a driver’s license and a World War II veteran who was forced to prove his citizenship.
The state blamed problems on the Department of Homeland Security, saying the federal citizenship database would allow the state to tune its attempt to match voting rolls with drivers' license information for immigration data.
“We have a right to this database,” Gov. Scott said Monday on Fox News’ Your World Cavuto show.
Florida has asked for access to the database since at least September and has received no response from Homeland Security, Detzner told the Justice Department earlier this month. Detzner has described the database roadblock as part of a federal conspiracy to illegally quash Florida’s purge.
Perez, the Justice Department official, said in his letter Monday that the state was advised by its own drivers' license agency eight months ago that the immigration database operates according to rules designed to prevent mistaken identity and probably won't help the voter purge. The database does not include information on U.S. citizens born inside the country. Queries also must include the name, date of birth and the unique identification number assigned to every legal immigrant, refugee or American citizen born abroad. In many cases, Florida does not have these identification numbers.
The American Civil Liberties Union, a left-leaning legal advocacy organization, filed suit against Florida on Friday. A conservative advocacy and research organization, Judicial Watch, has promised to sue Florida and other key states with large number of electoral college votes if they do not continue efforts to eliminate ineligible voters from their rolls.
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