Florida's voter purge

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I actually think it is critical that an elected official--accountable to the people--be in charge of conducting elections. After all, SOMEONE has to run the election, and in my view it is preferable that an elected official with limited power do it, not an "independent and accountable" body.

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I'm clearly missing something here. What are the downsides of an independent cross party or apolitical body overseeing the election processes? Once election legislation is in place, surely this is a straightforward administrative task requiring no input from any individual who might benefit from tinkering. Why would anyone give a damn if the person or body running the election were elected, as long as the election was carried out in a fair and proper fashion, as outlined in the legislation?

Mick, it's an American thing - you have to elect the toilet cleaners over there.

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Mick, it's an American thing - you have to elect the toilet cleaners over there.

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A slight exaggeration -- obviously -- but it's not that far from the truth.

Exhibit A -- Democratic candidate for Park County Coroner

Exhibit B -- Elect Judge Ural Glanville

Exhibit C -- Elect Brian Blair, Hillsborough County Commissioner

Exhibit D -- Elect Doug Sutherland, Commissioner of Public Lands

I'm Joe Petrik and I approve this message. (Obligatory disclaimer which follows all political ads)

We've some elections coming up soon in the UK. Without much notice my area has gone totally to postal voting. No more going to the polling station. This is clearly a political decision, although made by some nebulous entity rather than a directly elected and accountable Secretary of State.

Why weren't the 54000 wrongly erased from the Florida electoral roll screaming and shouting about it prior to the election? It's not like this was some minor janitorial or gubernatorial occasion.

Paul

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Originally posted by Paul Ranson:
Why weren't the 54000 wrongly erased from the Florida electoral roll screaming and shouting about it prior to the election? It's not like this was some minor janitorial or gubernatorial occasion.

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They weren't notified. The first they heard was when they showed up to vote and were told they couldn't. But for the full insanity, you have to read the Palast story. Follow the link posted earlier. It's enlightening and terrifying.

Davie

GWB seeking relection to the post of toilet cleaner. That's a nice picture.
I wouldn't even mind if anything dodgy went on to secure him the post.

In Florida (or the US in general) do you not get some kind of notification that there's an election and where to go to vote?

Strikes me that this would have been good legal grounds to nullify the election. OTOH that might have meant Al Gore being elected, and he would have been really useless.

Paul

That was Palast's point -- the purging didn't really come to light until later and in the meantime everyone was obsessing about hanging chads and ignoring an apaprently much more important issue.

AFAICT most Americans are still unaware of the whole thing.

Matthew

Reminds me of this

[This message was edited by Tom Alves on Wed 26 May 2004 at 13:45.]

Palast seems very full of himself.

And very superficial. Exactly what is intrinsically wrong with 'computerized' voter lists? Surely a central state list allows voters to confirm their registration details for themselves?

There's a whiff of the Moore about him, and his going along with the recent publicity stunt is inexcusable for a serious journalist. I wonder where the truth is?

Paul

Paul

Do you have any evidence to contradict what Palast is saying?

It would be interesting to read the other side of the story, but AFAICT all the reports from all the sources are concurring - obviously the spin differs, but the "facts" remain constant.

ag

Paul is just FUDing Palast I think.

Matthew

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Originally posted by Paul Ranson:
Exactly what is intrinsically wrong with 'computerized' voter lists?

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Nothing is wrong with them if they are maintain and used independently of the political parties with appropriate safeguards in place. When they are paid for, maintained and collated by a company with very close links to the ruling party and the law prevents the public from independently scrutinizing the database or it's maintianance contract there are some serious and legitimate worries.

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Do you have any evidence to contradict what Palast is saying?

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Saying about what?

The Florida voter purge was clearly illegal and inappropriate. But you only have to read the quote on the first page of this thread to see the spin in action.

Paul

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Originally posted by Paul Ranson:
The Florida voter purge was clearly illegal and inappropriate. But you only have to read the quote on the first page of this thread to see the spin in action.

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Would you like to put a positive spin on the subject?

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Nothing is wrong with them if they are maintain and used independently of the political parties with appropriate safeguards in place.

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But in the US the process depends on directly elected and accountable officials. Are you challenging that tradition? Should these officials be appointed by the State Governor?

There's clearly something broken with the US electoral process, but since no-one here seems to know what the process is when it comes to actually being a voter it's hard to discuss it. I don't understand how 54000 (I'm estimating from one of the figures given by Palast less the approximate number of actual felons) people could be removed from an electoral roll and not be aware until election day.

The people in England who decide where consituency boundaries should lie can have huge political side-effects. Are they 'independent of the political parties'? You judge here.

Paul

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Would you like to put a positive spin on the subject?

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It doesn't need any spin at all.

Greg Palast seems primarily concerned with 'Greg Palast, SuperReporter'.

I found this interesting, and some of the other material gathered on this web site. Including some by said Greg Palast...

Paul

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Originally posted by Paul Ranson:
I don't understand how 54000 (I'm estimating from one of the figures given by Palast less the approximate number of actual felons) people could be removed from an electoral roll and not be aware until election day.
Paul

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Paul:

As I said before, there is no notification procedure. Nor was there any big announcement along the lines of: "We're illegally removing some felons, many possible felons and thousands of people we just don't like in case they vote for Al Gore."

Anyway, the problem isn't the voters' awareness - it's the fact that this sort of corruption could happen at all. And that so few people in the States seem to know or care.

Incidentally, I doubt if Gore would have been "useless". He actually read his daily briefings, understood policy, and knew that a priority as president would have been the threat from Al-Qaeda (Bush's people were told the same thing, but did nothing - and GWB doesn't bother reading such mundane reports).

Davie

I did some digging and it turns out the NAACP and the ACLU did sue Katherine Harris after the 2000 election and there was a settlement.

In part this settlemnt agreed:

"Greater accuracy in the maintenance of voter registration rolls to ensure that eligible voters are not erroneously removed from the voter lists in future elections and restoration of voters who were wrongly removed prior to the 2000 elections"

"State monitoring and coordination to ensure that state agencies provide required voter registration opportunities and to ensure that the counties carry out state list maintenance programs in a uniform and non-discriminatory manner"

See http://archive.aclu.org/news/2002/n090302a.html

Presumably this settlement was followed up with announcements of appropriate reforms and procedural changes from the Florida state govenrment.

Matthew

You seem intimate with Bush's habits...

In the UK we get an annual request to confirm electoral roll details. And prior to an election you get sent a card telling you when and where to vote. They like you to take the card to the polling station but it's not required. Generally you don't have to show photo or any other ID. Anyway if I were purged from the roll I'd know.

It's clear from reading around that the quality of the electoral rolls in most of the US is very poor, and that election fraud is rather common. And not restricted to Republicans.

Paul

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And not restricted to Republicans.

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Have you any links to evidence of Democrat led electoral fraud?

ag

So presumably the 40,000 names Jeb just ordered off the voter rolls are fully vetted?

Dan

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Have you any links to evidence of Democrat led electoral fraud?

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I posted one to an enumeration of a litany of bipartisan US electoral fraud up thread. here

This one's relevant. What one party is removing from the rolls the other is doing its damnedest to replace...

'Vote early and vote often' allegedly coined by a Democrat.

Paul

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Originally posted by Paul Ranson:
You seem intimate with Bush's habits...

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GWB makes no secret of his indifference to details. He proudly says he doesn't read newspapers, magazines or books. And he has let it be known that he wants very brief memos summarising what's in his daily briefings.

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In the UK we get an annual request to confirm electoral roll details ... Anyway if I were purged from the roll I'd know.

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Yes, I'm familiar with how this works in the UK. But let's assume there was some similar hanky panky going on in your constituency. If you didn't see the annual request to update, or didn't receive your card before election day, would that automatically alert you to the fact that you'd been purged from the rolls?

Maybe you take more notice of these things, but I wouldn't have known anything was up until I got to the polling station.

Now imagine being a black voter in Palm Beach County, showing up in good faith, and without having a clue that there was a problem, to be told in public that you can't vote because you're a felon. A little humiliating, n'est-ce pas?

Davie

I suppose the USA, as the defender of democracy and racial equality, will be worried about its image overseas especially as it enjoys the staus of neutral observer overseeing elections in nacent democracies etc