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Florida Governor Rick Scott (file)
The Justice Department is suing the state of Florida over its controversial voter roll purge. Federal officials made their announcement today — the very same day that the state announced its plans to sue the Obama administration in an effort to get access to a Homeland Security Department database to aid in its voter purge efforts.
And because there clearly isn't enough legal action to go around, the ACLU is also suing the state of Florida over the purge.
Florida's Republican Governor Rick Scott defended the purge today on FOX News saying, "We found individuals that are registered to vote that don’t have a right to vote... and they voted. I have a job to do to defend the right of legitimate voters."
That echos remarks Governor Scott made yesterday at a Tea Party event in Tallahassee. Scott said at that event, "Okay so the latest is who should get to vote in our state and in our country. People that are citizens of our country. It's very simple, right? Who comes up with the idea that you get to vote if you're not a citizen?" You can read more about that event over on The Maddow Blog.
As for the letter written by Attorney General Thomas Perez, it's been included below. It was sent today by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner.





rick scott?, "purge?", just look at the photo, skin-head, el-supremo.
You sound like a racist. You must be one of those, lesser than average IQ, people the perpetuates stereo types.
States are required by federal law to verify their voting record against various federal data bases. Yesterday Florida filed a law suit against the federal government because they won't provide the required data bases. DOJ has nothing to stand on because Florida is working under direction of federal law. For me I want voter fraud stopped. I don't want some body that is here illegally to be able to make my vote useless.
Larry have you ever told the " whole truth" in your life. A real reporter would give you all the facts and let you decide. Larry has made is conclusions and turns the story to make you see things his way. He is a politician not a news reporter.
Thank you Newsvine for the ignore feature!
go ahead Haddie Nuff keep your head in the sand.
With the conservative estimate being that their are some 12,000,000 illegal immigrants in the US of A, do you suppose that some of them might be on that list of 160,000 names that the state of Florida has found are questionable registrants to vote in the state? Do you suppose as the state is saying that their are known felons (lost their right to vote when they were conviced of a felony) and known deceased individuals whose names have appeared on the voter's registration lists. This is housekeeping folks, and it was initiated 6 full months prior to the next election; giving amble time for anyone being affected adversely by having their name appear on this list in error to take remedial action by simply providing their proof of citizenship, and being still alive.
That the federal government is suing the state is preposterous; their claim for the suit is that this action is being taken too close to the election. I've been a Social Security recepient for five years now, and every year like clockwork the month of my birthday I receive a form letter from the Department of Social Security that I must fill out and return that certifies by my signature that I am eligible to receive my monthly benefits. Is that to be interpreted to be harrassment, or an attempt to have me stop cashing my monthly benefits check in fear that the government will take adverse action against me? Hardly...it is a necessity in this world of stolen identities, and it doesn't take a leap of faith to understand that the illegal immigrants that have managed to get on the voter registration rolls by stealing others identities including the dead and buried should be weeded out, just as the Social Security system of our federal government weeks out annually those who are not eligible to receive benefits, and/or are deceased.
Why is the Federal Government such a wonderful patriotic operation when it engages in wars on people outside of our borders, creating lots of dead bodies, and yet is utterly demonized when it attempts to bring a modicum of justice to out-of-control bigots like Rick Scott? I note that even local election officials are refusing to comply with his mandates. He acts more like a dictator than someone who governs with the consent of the governed.
Read that last sentence carefully, Fuzzy. I've determined it's a concept you missed in that education you keep bragging about. I'm trying to address the deficiency, honest, but it's been tough going.
But you really should give up writing that bad fiction that suggests immigrants who barely speak English and are largely filling jobs as housekeepers, agricultural types, or fast food workers are sophisticated enough to engage in wholesale and large scale identity theft.
You McCarthyites have replaced the "Red Scare" with the "Immigrant Scare."
Than Homeland Security should have no trouble turning over the requested data bases so that the state of Florida can go about double checking the claimed citizen status of your "too ignorant to scam" illegal immigrants, Czb Driver.
And I havn't noticed any anti religious issues in Florida...are you confusing your terms when you assign the term bigot to Governor Scott? Oh, I see, your alcoholic cooked brain that lives in fear of the Mormon influence in the goverment of your State (and soon to be Nation) believes everone but the anti-Mormon crowd you associate with are bigots. What a fool!
Did those voices in your head suggest I'd made a reference to religion in this post? Better look again... And religious bigotry isn't the only variety; you and Governor Scott regularly engage in the ethnic variety as well as those ignorant slurs you've made against people's sexual orientation.
But as far as that Homeland Security stuff goes, here's a bit of radical left-leaning rhetoric you can accuse me of promoting, and I'll happily agree with you...
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Illegal immigrants and voter fraud are the only chance Obama have in winning the key battle ground states.
Here's the latest poll numbers on women voters, Cindy. Assuming you're really female, you're out of step with the rest of your gender.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/07/bad-week-aside-female-voters-still-love-obama-more-than-romney.html
The Daily Beast is mostly a right wing operation, but it's also mostly an honest one.
Obama still has a large lead among women overall according to Gallup's May 6 poll. Obama leads Romney among women 49-42 percent. It’s the independent women who are being watched closely by the experts. Walsh said she has not noted any statistically meaningful change in the president’s support among this cohort.
And Rick Scott is a discredited founder of a health care organization that profited mightily off of Medicare fraud (he was forced to resign) and spent 75 million of his own money to win the Florida governorship.
I'll let you research what the job pays and ask why would he do something like that?
The President owns a similar advantage among Latinos, and that voting bloc doesn't consist of illegal immigrants, despite what you're being told. I had lunch with a friend from New Mexico whose family had been living in that part of this country for 300 years. That's right, before most of this country's founding fathers had even been born.
The one to watch closely is the 150 million christian voters Obama lost because of the whole contraception debacle. He'll lose a lot of the female votes because of the high unemployment rate among women. He'll lose the latinos for non action on immigration reform. He lost all the fat cats on Wall Street because of class warfare. It's going to be tough.
Uh, Cindy, you really need to lay off whatever tonic you and Grandpa are swilling.
There aren't 150 million voters in this country who will go to the polls. The turnout in the 2008 election was 122,000 million. I'll source that one if you want to double down, but you'll only look sillier.
The only hypothetical votes he lost with the contraception non-issue were aging white men who believe their Viagra should be paid for but don't want the gals to have their own fun (or simply choose to postpone childbearing). He probably wasn't going to get them anyway, but Boss Humbaugh® made sure the gals would vote for Obama.
Let's leave the fiction for the creative writing classes, okay?
Hey Cab Driver...Obama enjoyed a 13.7% majority with the women's votes in 2008, now 5 full months out from the election and before Romney secured the Republican Party nomination the poll you are bragging on only show he has a 7% lead over Romney with these same voters, and is 3.1% short of a majority there?
Something is wrong, especially as you noted white men are rallying to the Romney canadicacy. Meanwhile the latest Quinniapiac poll shows that in the important swing state of Pennsylvania Romney is in a virtual dead heat with Obama, and on the issue of who they trust best to deal with the problems of the economy Romney enjoys a 17% lead over Obama, including amonst women and the all important independent voters.
Read it and weep, fool! At this point in his reelection year, Jimmie Carter (that other recent failed President enjoyed a 30% lead over Ronald Reagan, who the liberal media was savaging as a ineffective Governor and a failed B Movie Actor. Feast on that knuckle sandwich to your ignorant arguments.
Grandpa's been hitting his giggle juice again, or maybe he's just taken one too many of his arthritis pills... Carter's situation was thus-and-such, therefore Obama's must be the same and the same thing will happen.
Not very strong on cause-and-effect, are you, oh poster-child-for-poor-education-the-1950's...
People liked Reagan. People don't like Romney. They like Obama. Carter had the hostage crisis. Obama has the pictures of Osama Bin Laden...
Reagan stood for something. Romney stands for whatever it was he said, and that changes regularly.
Pure cemetery whistling, Grandpa... At your age that's understandable... My sympathies... Good reason to hit the sauce... At least I'm assuming that's the reason for the unbelievable syntax and disrespectful spelling of our 39th President's first name...
And you're lying about whom the American people trusts with the economy... That one's a tie...
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/05/22/poll_obama_romney_tied_on_economy.html
Don't get too apoplectic, however, simply because it's in your narcissistic nature to get angry with people who hold you accountable for your dishonest and boorish behavior.
Here, I'll give you an excuse to be angry... Trayvon Martin's wife has been arrested for perjury.
Stupid republicans.
This is the only way republicans can win.Cheat all you want.The eyes of the country are on you.
You seem to be missing the point that the cheaters are the ones who are attempting to vote illegally, and the people who are trying to register them. Republican's don't play that game! That is an Obama-Acorn tactic that helped him in 2008, and he feels the need through his kindred Attorney General the Dishonorable Eric (Racist) Holder to smooth the way for his campaign to accomplish that again this year.
By the by, there are some folks in the "clinging to their guns and bibles" crowd in Pennsylvania ready to make sure that their are no Black Panthers swinging pick ax handles outside the polling places in Philly this November as there were in 20008, and which Holder refused to allow attorneys in the Justice Department to bring charges against, No More Stinking!
Tell us the rest of the ACORN story, Grandpa, about James O'Keefe copping a plea and still facing further charges for his slimeball tactics where he still could face criminal charges for other activities.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/election_law_experts_say_james_okeefe_accomplices_could_face_charges_over_voter_fraud_stunt.php
And I note the HuffPo is reporting he addressed a group in New Hampshire via video because he might've faced a criminal sopoena if he'd set foot in the Granite State.
The paranoid lawmakers who bought his lies are the same sorts who bought the Bush 43 bull@!$%# about WMD's. Wait, one lawmaker didn't... He's the guy in the Oval Office these days...
And I'm seriously embarrassed that the NRA, which ought to be providing services offering civilian marksmanship, gun safety, conservation, and the history of the wonderful innovations in firearms is instead being used to offer testosterone fixes for the "Stand your Ground" crowd.
More non-existent fear-mongering nonsense; the figures on U.S. Crime Rates are down again, as was widely reported yesterday.
Finally, Pennsylvania isn't even going to be close, and you crap about "Black Panthers" is another talking point you downloaded from those voices in your head.
Read my above comment on the recent Pennsylvania Quinipiac poll results.
You are aware that Barack Obama as a State Legislator had joined the Acorn sponsored NEW PARTY, and had signed a contract to be a candidate for their platforms, that called for a Nationalist Socialist agenda in the Nation ala their leading light sol Lewinski of the University of Chicago leftist crowd? And had been funneling his campaign donations in 2008 to Acorn for their discredited voter registration drives? No? Or you just don't want to deal with the reality of that smelly part of Obama's recent history?
It's Saul Lewinsky, gonzo, and he was Jewish.
National Socialists was a translation of the German term, Nazi... Are you looking to be Glenn Beck's understudy, perhaps? BTW, I was one of the guys who gave a group of scholars some of the banana peels they laid out that got him tossed from FAUX Noise...
Lewinsky was also a member of a group categorized as "left-leaning non-socialists."
The Nazis were a right wing organization, headcase...
The only slimey stuff comes from those turds you keep picking up and tossing and get all over yourself instead. I'd give you the same advice David Shuster gave Andrew Breitbart about getting professional help, only Breitbart was so stupid the help he got was from a mortician. I'm worried you're no brighter than he was.
The Quinnipiac Poll shows the President leading Romney 46 to 40... And here's a secret about pollsters (see Luntz, Frank). It's in their vested interest to make things more dramatic than they really are.
HERE IS THE REAL TRUTH...225,000 notices were sent out over 70% were black and or Latino/a. One hundred of the 225,000 were illegals. Of that one hundred 50 Had voted illegally. There are 11,155,780 registered voters in Florida.
That means 1 out of every 2,231,156 registered voters were illegal. IS THIS GUY SERIOUS? For 50 people he is going to punish 225,000 honest citizen voters?
HELLO HOUSTON.....I THINK WE HAVE A PROBLEM!!!
Cite your sources for that little fabrication, Ms. Grahm-Buxton.
Here's one of the sources of Mary's claim...
http://lezgetreal.com/2012/06/13-illegal-voters-may-have-decided-2008-election/
Fortunately, civil disobedience (you're the one who cited, Thoreau, remember) is alive and well in the Sunshine State.
The 67 county clerks in Florida have chosen to obey the Justice Department’s cease and desist order and stop wasting taxpayer money on this ridiculous purging of the voter registration rolls.