Using an American war veteran as the face of their cause, two South Florida congressmen called on the governor Tuesday to immediately stop the state's purge of the voter rolls.

And in a separate move, Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson sent a letter to the governor expressing his own concerns about the voter purging.

U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, and U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, accused the Republican governor of using the roll cleanup as a ruse to disenfranchise voters just months before a presidential election.

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"Voting is a fundamental, constitutionally guaranteed right," the coalition wrote. "As such it cannot be lightly withdrawn on the basis of a highly flawed and suspect process."

TALLAHASSEE — Six Democratic members of Congress are asking Florida Gov. Rick Scott to suspend a push to remove voters from the rolls.

Democrats sent a letter today to Scott questioning the timing and the accuracy of the effort to purge voters identified as non U.S. citizens.

The state has already put out an initial list of more than 2,600 people identified as non-U.S. citizens. But local election officials charged with checking the list have discovered errors.

State election officials have compared driver's licenses with voter registration data and found that as many as 182,000 registered voters are eligible to be in the country but ineligible to vote.

Those who signed the letter were: U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Corrine Brown, Kathy Castor, Ted Deutch, Alcee Hastings and Frederica Wilson.

Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) has directed his administration to purge the state’s voting rolls of thousands of registered voters prior to the November election. But his list, which purports to include only “non-citizens,” targets mostly Democrats and Hispanics and, as ThinkProgress has documented, may disenfranchise hundreds of citizens who are eligible to vote.

The story of a sitting governor of a state with a history of presidential election shenanigans knowingly purging his own, eligible constituents from the voter rolls is the definition of major news, and yet remarkably, in the first five months of the year, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today have published a total of zero articles about Scott’s actions. The New York Times did slightly better, printing one story on page 16 of the Friday, May 18th edition. The article ran under the credulous headline: “Florida Steps Up Effort Against Illegal Voters.”

Democrats continued Thursday to blast new voter laws in Florida and 13 other states which they say have been crafted by Republican leaders to blunt turnout and damage President Obama’s re-election bid next year.

Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a member of Congress from Davie, said the party has launched a new website www.protectingthevote.org aimed at informing voters of the new standards — and rallying support for having them overturned. Florida’s law is already the subject of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and voting rights organizations.

A U.S. Senate subcommittee also plans to hold a hearing in Florida in coming weeks on the new law, following a request by Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, who said the state’s new standard violates “basic rights.”

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“By now, it’s well known they’re determined to roll back the right to vote and skew the 2012 presidential election,” Wasserman Schultz said.

By Debbie Wasserman Schultz

The national effort to restrict the right to vote has nothing to do with common sense; it is a callous political calculation designed to advantage Republicans in 2012. Rather than artificially slanting the electorate, it is time for Republicans to join the efforts of the president and the Democratic Party to create jobs, invest in our future, and address the challenges our nation faces. Maybe then the GOP wouldn't have to work so hard to stop Americans from voting.