Florida at the forefront as states plan fresh assault on voting rights

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Florida at the forefront as states plan fresh assault on voting rights

Ed Pilkington in Orlando
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 July 2012 17.28 BST

Voting rights groups are struggling to hold back a tide of new laws that are likely to make it harder for millions of Americans to vote in the presidential election in November and could distort the outcome of the race for the White House.

Since January 2011, 19 states have passed a total of 24 laws that create hurdles between voters and the ballot box. Some states are newly requiring people to show government-issued photo cards at polling stations. Others have whittled down early voting hours, imposed restrictions on registration of new voters, banned people with criminal records from voting or attempted to purge eligible voters from the electoral roll.

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Florida Republicans have made several blatant attempts to suppress turnout this election cycle. One of the first acts of governor Rick Scott when he took office in 2011 was to reimpose what is in effect a lifelong voting ban on anyone convicted of a felony - including 1.3 million Floridians who have fully completed their sentences.

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The felony trap is just a small part of it. Over the past 18 months the Republican-controlled state government in Florida has introduced a rash of new restrictions. They include a reduction in early voting hours that will hit black communities that made disproportionate use of the opportunity through their churches; changes to the rules that will make it harder for those who change address to vote and could catch hundreds of thousands of families who have lost their homes through foreclosure; and attempts to erase thousands of voters from the electoral roll through a "purge list" that was so flawed that the state's electoral supervisors refused to touch it.

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/26/florida-assault-voting-rights

[MrMickeysMom]

1. So bitter about this...

I was a Floridian for 30 years... no more, but I recall a different Florida that I one loved is gonzo.

Meanwhile, my sister, who for some strange reason went back to retire, is going nuts trying to register these people, and the apathy has reached a high, I'm sure.

Way to go, Rick Scott. What a killer...