Appeals court: Fla. can enforce anti-voter fraud law for now

[flashl]

Florida can temporarily enforce a law that disqualifies any voter registration where the Social Security or driver license number on the application can't be matched with government databases, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said a lower court shouldn't have ordered a temporary injunction in December that prevented Florida from enforcing an anti-fraud law that dismissed applications when matches couldn't be made.

Plaintiffs sued in September, arguing the law could easily and unfairly exclude people based on simple mistakes. For example, if someone got their driver's license number wrong by one digit, they could be prevented from registering.

The law will not be reinstated immediately, said Secretary of State Kurt Browning. It's important to make sure all the legal issues are settled, so that the state's 67 elections supervisors aren't subjected to more policy changes than necessary, he said.

Miami Herald

Brought to you from the same folks who are arguing about their definition of voter disenfranchising.

[DrDan]

1. not sure what point you are trying to make - from one here in Florida

who is claiming to be disenfranchised.

[flashl]

2. The Nelson-Thurman-DNC delegate saga?

[DrDan]

3. well - being from Florida I am certainly familiar with it

what does that have to do with trying to validate voter registrations

[flashl]

4. Are you familiar with Choicepoint voter database cleaning in 2000?

[DrDan]

5. yes I am . . . but still fail to see the connection with our current disenfranchisement debacle

[flashl]

6. Which disenfranchisement debacle would that be?

[DrDan]

7. there is only one to my knowledge . . .

[flashl]

8. Delegates will be seated. Who else?

DU GD Post: The Republican War on Voting

By Art Levine, The American Prospect. Posted April 4, 2008.

The Republican Party is trying to suppress low-income minority votes by propagating the myth of voter fraud.

One week before the close of voter registration in Kentucky last fall, in an election that culminated with the victory of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear, Johanna Sharrard, a fresh-faced 26-year-old national organizer for the low-income advocacy group ACORN, gathered her canvassers in a run-down Louisville office and told them some good news: "We got 396 people yesterday -- that's really great!" Then she added what could have seemed a jarringly discordant note: "We know it's getting harder to reach people with the cards in this area. It's really important that you guys are not slipping up and turning to filling out your own applications or other fraudulent activity. Just yesterday we had to let another person go because she did not follow protocols." Sharrard continued sternly, "What's important is that we get 15,000 new voters. We're not out there to get 10,000 new voters and 5,000 false applications."

edit: add DU Post

[DrDan]

10. yes - that appears to be true - and at that time the disenfranchisement

issue seems to be history . . .

But . . . what is the connection between that and validating voters through SSNs or Drivers License numbers. Seem to be different issues.

[flashl]

13. Florida's admission and history of mangling the voter database.

[DrDan]

14. ok - I get it now - I mistakenly misinterpreted your

attempt at humor as an attempt to make a legitimate point.

my error.

[flashl]

15. Phew! Next time, I'll use sarcasm thingy.

:thumbsup:

[peace13]

11. I have to ask you this...

Regarding the one that you have knowledge of, did you do anything to stop your state from agreeing to move your primary? Did you write letters, call TV and radio stations, gather a group and demonstrate to stop the primary from being moved that would in turn disenfranchise you and the state of Florida. If your answer is no I do not feel sorry for you.

[DrDan]

16. first - I will say my answer is not no - I did put forth some efforts prior to the DNC-

disenfranchisement.

Then I will add that I do not necessarily believe all the fault lies with the Fl legislature or the state party. I have written enough expressing my views that my fingers are tired - and I do not care to go into the details once again.

I know there are very articulate posters here who would have you believe there is only one side to this story. However, these is another side shared by many in Florida. These posters prefer the "ignore" button to honest debate.

[Wilms]

9. Of course you mean the DBT voter database cleaning in 2000. Right?

I know, I know. Greg Palast said, "...".

But one doesn't need a fedora get the fact straights.

DBT scrub the list based on FL specification. DBT told FL that as a result, many names were tossed that shouldn't have been. FL said, in effect, that they didn't care. Choicepoint buys DBT. Palast pays off mortgage.

[flashl]

12. Palast wasn't needed

Florida Faces 2000 Election Fraud, Will Settle With NAACP

MIAMI (AP) The NAACP's lawsuit over Florida's disputed 2000 presidential election appears headed for a close as the state and two counties the only remaining defendants have agreed to a settlement, attorneys said Tuesday.

Joe Klock, an attorney for the state, told U.S. District Judge Alan Gold that all parties promised to file final papers by Friday for approval. Attorneys would not discuss terms of the settlement.

The class-action lawsuit filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights groups argued voters were disenfranchised during the on Nov. 7, 2000 election; it included allegations that blacks were kept from voting in some counties.

[Wilms]

17. Right.

And no mention of Choicepoint. Though they miss DBT and Katherine Harris, too.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that a purge (among other things) didn't occur in FL. It's just that the broad-brushed "Choicepoint did it" notion is not exactly accurate.

BTW, here's a working link for that story you posted.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/08.29A.fl.face.2K.htm

[flashl]

18. NAACP v. Katherine Harris et al. Class Action Voting Rights Lawsuit

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, INC. by its FLORIDA STATE CONFERENCE OF BRANCHES, JIMMIE PANNELL, JULIA STONER, NATALIE CARNEGIE, ERMA J. KELLY, JOHN L. CHEEVER, JAMES MARSHALL, LILLIE Q. ODOM, WILLIE STEEN, WALLACE MCDONALD, JERMAINE TERRY, LORINE WALDEN, EMERY TIMBERLAKE, VALERIE BUFORD-WELLS, MICHELLE FLOYD, CONSUELO MARIA GRAHAM, SHERRY EDWARDS, KANDY WELLS, JOANNA CLARK, JANICE KELLY, PLACIDE DOSSOUS and RONDRICK ROSE in their own right and as representatives of all similarly situated citizens and residents of the State of Florida,

Plaintiffs,

vs.

KATHERINE HARRIS, Secretary of State of Florida; CLAY ROBERTS, Director of the Florida Division of Elections; DAVID C. LEAHY, Miami-Dade County Election Supervisor; MIRIAM OLIPHANT, Broward County Election Supervisor; JOHN STAFFORD, Duval County Election Supervisor; PAM IORIO, Hillsborough County Election Supervisor; ION SANCHO, Leon County Election Supervisor; WILLIAM COWLES, Orange County Election Supervisor and DEANIE LOWE, Volusia County Election Supervisor (all in their official capacities); and CHOICEPOINT, INC., a Georgia corporation d/b/a DATABASE TECHNOLOGIES INC.,

---

Wiki: Florida Voter File
The parties reached a settlement wherein ChoicePoint will donate $75,000 to the NAACP and will reprocess the voter file on the plaintiffs' terms.

Used Wiki, unable to locate actual ChoicePoint news release

edit to add: ChoicePoint settlement

[Wilms]

19. Choicepoint would be responsible for the liability of the company they bought.

But let me be more clear in my questions to you.

1. To your understanding, was it Choicepoint, or was it DBT prior to being bought by Choicepoint, that did the purge.

2. Was it Choicepoint/DBT/or the state that set the parameters for the lists creation.

Thanks.


-on edit, and from your Wiki link-

The first firm hired on 1998 to purge the voter rolls was Professional Service Inc., which charged $5,700 for the job. Later in the same year, the state placed an open request for tenders to bid for the job. The contract was assigned to DBT Onlines, despite the fact that its bid was the highest-priced. The state gave the job to DBT for a first year fee of US $2,317,800 with total fees eventually reaching US $4 million <2> The Florida Department of Elections terminated Professional Service Inc.'s contract in 1999. DBT Online was later acquired by ChoicePoint, of Atlanta, in early 2000.

Problems in the cleansing process

At first, Florida specified only exact matches on names, birthdates and genders to identify voters as felons. However, state records reveal a memo dated March 1999 from Emmett "Bucky" Mitchell, a lawyer for the state elections office who was supervising the felon purge, asking DBT to loosen its criteria for acceptable matches. When DBT representatives warned Mitchell that this would yield a large proportion of false positives (mismatches), Mitchell's reply was that it would be up to each county elections supervisor to deal with the problem.

In February 2000, in a phone conversation with the BBC's London studios, ChoicePoint vice-president James Lee said that the state "wanted there to be more names than were actually verified as being a convicted felon".

See where I'm at, now. :shrug:

[flashl]

20. ChoicePoint acquired DBT 'early' in 2000. ChoicePoint, a Defendent, settled in the suit.

Botched Name Purge Denied Some the Right to Vote

The impact of the botched felon purge fell disproportionately on black Floridians and, by extension, on the Democratic Party, which won the votes of 9 out of every 10 African American voters, according to exit polls

"Obviously, we want to capture more names that possibly aren't matches and let the {county elections} supervisors make a final determination rather than exclude certain matches altogether," said Emmett "Bucky" Mitchell, who headed the state purge effort, in a March 1999 e-mail to Database Technologies product manager Marlene Thorogood, who had warned him of possible mistakes.

In an interview, Clay Roberts, director of the state's division of elections, confirmed the policy. "The decision was made to do the match in such a way as not to be terribly strict on the name."

In-house concerns persisted. "Let's remember there is a liability issue in our erroneously identifying individuals as felons or deceased," said George A. Bruder Jr., a company senior vice president, in a May 26, 2000, e-mail to Thorogood. "We need to be very careful in who we label as what. If we are unsure the default should be to NOT label them as anything."

The company admits it made some mistakes. One list sent to Florida officials inaccurately contained 8,000 people who had committed misdemeanors -- not felonies -- in Texas.

People wrongly tagged as felons because of the loose matching policy included judges and the father of a county election supervisor. Also on the list were at least 2,000 felons who moved to Florida from states that automatically restore voting rights.

It was left to local election supervisors to determine whether residents of their counties were accurately listed as felons. With little guidance from the state, county supervisors devised their own rules.

...

In Lake County, by contrast, Supervisor Emogene Stegall decided the list of "probable felons" sent by the state was so flawed that she did not use it.

"They're not sending us what the statute requires them to do, so I feel we're not bound to process those," Stegall said. "They're not sure. There are so many people who have the same name, same date of birth."

ChoicePoint acquired DBT early in 2000, not after the 2000 election.

Are 'we' now to accept that the largest provider of law enforcement and intelligent information to states and the federal government will accept requests to provide 'cherrypicked' information to officials on demand?

[Wilms]

21. Did I argue that DBT was aquired after the 2K?

No. I only argued what was supported by the links you continue to provided. Have you read them? :shrug:

This latest discusses all the misdeeds of DBT, and that they were subsequently purchased by Choicepoint. Just like I've been saying and just as you resist acknowledging.

Even Palast gets it as his writing led me to the fact that DBT created the list and told the state it was defective. But he's more than happy to otherwise state the name of the company that bought DBT after the fact, perhaps because of it's name recognition as "the largest provider of law enforcement and intelligent information to states and the federal government" and that mortgage payment.

The record is clear as facts are stubborn despite the cognitive difficulty many experience.

Enjoy the weekend. :hi:

[flashl]

22. What I am clear about ...

Using database automation software to match records with a given criteria is not rocket science and in fact do not require months to complete or correct.