BBV: Legal action with ACLU over Florida felon purging

[BevHarris]

In Georgia, the Republicans pushed for the bill (ultimately, at least so far, unsuccessful) to get a paper ballot. In California, the bill was bipartisan, with a Republican and a Democrat sponsoring it. The Libertarian Party has also been active. Now, watch the Florida Greens take the lead on the felon purge issue:

The Green Party of Florida Retains ACLU As Legal Counsel To Vet Florida Felon Match List

MIAMI, FL - The Green Party of Florida is pleased to announce today that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida has agreed to represent the Party as its legal counsel for the purpose of ensuring that the recently released Felon Match List does not cause any voter to be improperly purged from Florida's Central Voter Database (CVD).

In the shadow of the 2000 Florida Election fiasco, the Green Party of Florida (GPF) is concerned that eligible Florida voters will be, once again, erroneously and illegally removed from Florida's voter roles, depriving individuals of their citizen's voice. Protection of voter rights and the extension of the voter franchise is an important priority for the Green Party. A review of the 2000 election shows that purge errors had a disproportionate impact on the poor, African-American and other minority voters. "We're particularly concerned that those already disenfranchised are most subject to losing their voting rights," said Dan McCrea, former South Miami City Commissioner and a spokesperson for the Green Party Felon Rights Project.

"It is bad enough that Florida is one of only seven states which refuse automatic restoration of voting rights after a criminal sentence is served," noted Green Party spokesperson, Mark S. Kamleiter, "but in the 2000 elections the Secretary of State actually purged thousands of innocent voters from the voting rolls. We simply cannot allow that to happen again."

The ACLU's agreement to provide legal assistance to this voter protection project brings powerful, effective additional resources to the effort. "The ACLU's long history and expertise in legal advocacy for the protection of voter rights made it a natural fit to assist us," said Mark Kamleiter. "We were able to secure the representation of the ACLU because the protection of voter rights is essentially a nonpartisan issue. All citizens will benefit from the work that the ACLU will do for the Green Party." Dan McCrea agrees- "this is about people, not political parties. This is about defending individual rights regardless of political party. When it comes to protecting civil rights the ACLU is unsurpassed."


Background Information:

Florida is one of only seven states which do not automatically restore voter rights to those convicted of felonies, once they have completed their sentence. Currently, Florida has more than 600,000 citizens, who cannot vote even though they have paid their debt to society. A disproportionate number of these disenfranchised citizens are African American.

The Florida Department of Elections (DOE) operates under the Secretary of State who is appointed by the Governor. As part of the Florida Election Reform Act of 2001, Florida created procedures to centralize its voter registration roles into a Central Voter Database (CVD). Approximately three weeks ago, the DOE activated a 47,000 name "felon matching component" of the Central Voter Database. This process is designed to purge any Floridians who have been convicted of a Florida felony from the voter rolls.

Aside from the fact that many consider this practice unnecessarily punitive, a similar process conducted for the 2000 elections, resulted in the illegal removal of thousands of legal voters from our voter rolls. In a post-2000 lawsuit, NAACP v. Harris (now NAACP v. Smith), various civil rights groups challenged the state's voter purge procedures. Despite the acknowledged failure of this procedure in 2000, voters in Florida have no assurance that the new 2004 purge list is any more accurate.

The vast majority of people currently being released from supervision must have a hearing before the Governor and his Cabinet in Tallahassee as part of the process of applying for restoration of their civil rights, including the right to vote. There are over 35,000 applications currently awaiting review. The restoration of voter rights is a matter of "executive grace", which means that voter rights may be restored or denied by the Governor and Cabinet, sitting as the Board of Executive Clemency. Applications for the restoration of voter rights can be denied for any reason or no reason at all.

http://www.floridagreens.org/

[MallRat]

1. Way to go, Greens! Force their hand on this.

If they succeed in their legal action, I might even be able to forgive them for Nader.

-MR

[ashling]

8. Not me

This action is to be commended, butdon't forget that if we had a legitimate administration in power with a Justice Department truly concerned for the rights of all Americans, the Greens and ACLU would more likely only have to file as friends of the court in litigation brought by the feds.

[BevHarris]

9. You make a good point.

When I think back on my last year and a half, investigating voting machines, the very idea of reporting what turned out to be wholesale disregard of the laws and, sometimes, clear evidence of fraud, to the authorities became almost laughable.

I did, of course, when I found it. Only in California did my reports get treated with any dignity, and even there, some fairly egregious stuff got turned over to local cronies who immediately patted the perps on the back and said "no worries, everyone move along now."

And we broke that story on Diebold and the National Federation of the Blind this week -- turns out that, entirely independently of our own investigation, another woman had investigated it. She is a blind mother of 8 children who reported what appeared to be racketeering activity to the Justice Dept. -- no help at all. Yet, her facts are so compelling that by herself, she prepared AND FILED a RICO lawsuit against Diebold, the NFB and 10 banks. Now understand that while we're seeing lawsuit after lawsuit dismissed, even though she was acting without a lawyer, trying to do the case on her own, and the defendants tried repeatedly to obtain a dismissal, the judge REFUSED TO DISMISS. Finally, he told her the case was too complex, she needed a lawyer. Gently, he dismissed without prejudice, meaning she can file again when she gets a lawyer.

But my question: If this woman had such a good case that she made it through two dismissal hearings on her own, and if her facts are so provable that Andy Stephenson and I independently found them, why did the Justice Department completely ignore her pleas to look at the material?

It's only democracy at stake.

Bev Harris

[LittleApple81]

2. Thanks again Bev!!! I can never stop saying thanks to you. n/t

[BevHarris]

4. Greg Palast deserves all the props for breaking the felon purge

He did amazing research to pop this story loose, and stuck with it for nearly two years to push it into the mainstream.

Sometimes it takes that long.

By the way: "Black Box Voting" -- the nonprofit, is a consumer protection group for elections, and though we are focusing on research and public awareness on the voting machine issue, we are set up to investigate and report on all kinds of election procedures, as time goes on: voter roll manipulation, voting machines, redistricting, absentee balloting, campaign finance.

This broad charter will allow us to play a unique and truly useful roll to investigate and educate the public on fair election procedures. Until now, I don't believe there has ever been an independent, publicly funded consumer protection group for elections.

The privatization of our elections procedures makes it absolutely urgent and imperative that we have effective watchdog groups.

And of course, the call for action: Email [e-mail] with "volunteer" in the subject line to participate in the Black Box Voting citizen election watch procedures this fall.

Bev Harris

[truthspeaker]

3. Did the settlement of NAACP v. Smith specify corrective action?

It would seem Florida is repeating what they did in 2000. I'm no lawyer, but since Florida settled with the NAACP over this, could the NAACP take them to court and ask for an injunction to prevent Florida from using the same process they used in 2000?

[BevHarris]

5. Ah, but this is Florida. They still haven't restored rights for 20,000

officials said "the courts said we had to restore the rights. They didn't say WHEN we had to do that."

Bev

[NewYorkerfromMass]

7. Let's try NOW.

I remember the lacksidasical, nonchalant attitude about when they had to be restored.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Thanks for posting this, Bev. :^)

[Bushfire]

10. This thread dropped too quickly

I would have missed it for not using the search function.

[ClassWarrior]

11. kick

n/t

[Andy_Stephenson]

12. And it deserves another...

:kick:

[ClassWarrior]

13. And another...

:kick:

[Andy_Stephenson]

14. I'll see this kick and raise it another.

:kick:

[DemonFighterLives]

15. I was looking for some election news

Talking to a potential brother in law who is a wing nut.
He refuses to believe any of the shenanigans from FL. I told him I would send him the the story of the settlement over the felon purge. The links I found were not like I remembered and am sure it has quieted down since.
How can freepers so easily brush off all of these things?

[Hubert Flottz]

16. I hope I live long enough to see the Bush Gang purged!

They are all KKKons! :kick: them OUT!

[Hubert Flottz]

17. One more

:kick:

[Andy_Stephenson]

18. Why did I think of

Binge and purge immediately?

:puke:

[Karenina]

19. KICK!

:kick:

[Hubert Flottz]

21. I get the urge to purge when I see Dumbya's face!

:puke:

EDIT} Will somebody hold my hair while I Purge?

[Andy_Stephenson]

23. Try scrunchies...

I have found...they wok great for those odd moments whehn you feel the need to purge. ~~:puke:

[wellstone dem]

20. kkkkiiiiiiiiiiiiick

[RedEagle]

22. Kick!