Florida List for Purge of Voters Proves Flawed

[acmavm]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/10/national/10florida.html?th

By FORD FESSENDEN

Published: July 10, 2004

<snip>

Florida election officials used a flawed method to come up with a listing of people believed to be convicted felons, a list that they are recommending be used to purge voter registration rolls, state officials acknowledged yesterday. As a result, voters identifying themselves as Hispanic are almost completely absent from that list.

Of nearly 48,000 Florida residents on the felon list, only 61 are Hispanic. By contrast, more than 22,000 are African-American.

About 8 percent of Florida voters describe themselves as Hispanic, and about 11 percent as black.

<snip>

Hispanic Republicans outnumber Hispanic Democrats by about 100,000 voters in Florida. But more than 90 percent of the approximately one million registered blacks there are Democrats. The exclusion of Hispanics from the purge list explains some of the wide discrepancy in party affiliation of voters on the felon list, which bears the names of 28,025 Democrats and just 9,521 Republicans, with most of the rest unaffiliated.

-MORE-

[flpoljunkie]

1. Automatically exempted all felons who identified themselves as Hispanics

"The honorable thing to do,'' Mr. Maddox added, ''is throw the list out and not purge people erroneously on the eve of election."

Some county election supervisors have said they are reluctant to use the state's list to purge the names of any voters. The law leaves that responsibility to the county officials, but it is unclear how many will use it.

"It's an impossible task to do properly," said Ion Sancho, the supervisor in Leon County, in the Florida Panhandle.

The paucity of Hispanic voters on the felon list was first reported Wednesday, by The Sarasota Herald-Tribune, but officials said then that the problem was not systematic. After The New York Times examined the data, state officials acknowledged that the method for matching lists of felons to those of voters automatically exempted all felons who identified themselves as Hispanic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/10/national/10florida.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

____________________

It is apparently in the hands of the election supervisors. Let's hope they will do what is right and throw out these flawed lists they have not even been given enough time to properly examine.

[mourningdove92]

2. Am I understanding this correctly?

the list did not consider anyone who listed themself as hispanic, but did consider those listed as black? How about white, asian? indian? arab?

Did I misunderstand this?

[King of New Orleans]

3. Nope you've got it

It was "inadvertant" of course. Jeb will probably have to can someone as the fall guy to cover this goof up.

[baby_bear]

4. This must be kicked! It's huge!!

It's scandalous and probably criminal. If it weren't for that court decision, we would have never known.

The U.N. needs to get involved in observing Florida's election procedures in November.

Gov. Bush is determined once again to hand his state to his brother, voters' preference be damned.

Are Floridians up in arms? I have not heard.

s_m

[bear425]

5. kick

and yes! I am in Florida and I am outraged, again.

[oasis]

6. kick

[bklyncowgirl]

7. Can we get the UN observers in to certify the election in Florida

What blatent discriminatory vote rigging.

Jeb Bush should be in jail.