Must we now dread Scott?

A lit­tle over a week ago, I wrote about Florida’s impor­tance in the upcom­ing elec­tion, and the efforts of the Repub­li­can gov­er­nor there to dis­en­fran­chise Florid­i­ans who are likely to vote Demo­c­ra­tic. There have been fur­ther devel­op­ments in the story.

The U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice (DOJ) has filed a law­suit in an effort to block Gov­er­nor Rick Scott’s attempt to purge minori­ties from the voter rolls. In response, Gov­er­nor Scott announced his intent to sue the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­rity to gain access to a data­base he says will assist his efforts.

Gov­er­nor Scott’s con­tro­ver­sial pro­gram is intended, he says, to ensure that non-​​citizens in Florida don’t vote. The state is match­ing infor­ma­tion on driver’s licenses (which often includes cit­i­zen­ship sta­tus) against lists of reg­is­tered vot­ers. Over 2,600 let­ters were sent — 87 per­cent to African-​​Americans and His­pan­ics — inform­ing selected vot­ers that they would be dropped from the vot­ing rolls unless they could prove their cit­i­zen­ship within thirty days. Many of the peo­ple indi­cated as non-​​citizens on their licenses have since become cit­i­zens, and sim­ply not altered their records. In Miami-​​Dade County, forty of those receiv­ing notice have been shown to be non-​​citizens. More than five hun­dred have already sup­plied proof of cit­i­zen­ship, pro­vid­ing (so far) more than a ten-​​to-​​one ratio of false pos­i­tives. (more…)