Posted on 06/27/2012 12:39:21 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
A federal judge denied the U.S. Department of Justice’s request for an emergency restraining order to halt Florida’s non-citizen voter purge and said the controversial scrub does not violate federal law.
U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle heard arguments this morning from the Justice Department and Michael Carvin, a Washington lawyer representing Gov. Rick Scott’s administration. Carvin was one of the lead lawyers for President George W. Bush in the protracted 2000 recount legal wrangle.
Hinkle denied the request for the emergency stop to the program in part because he said the state was no longer doing it.
But he also rejected Justice Department attorney John Bert Russ’s argument that the non-citizen voter purge violates federal law.
He also chided both administrations, saying the “federal government and the state government ought to be working together” to ensure honest elections.
Wednesday’s hearing is the first of multiple lawsuits over the voter purge. Scott is suing the Department of Homeland Security over access to a federal database the state contends would allow them to create a less error-prone list than the Secretary of State Ken Detzner distributed to county supervisors in April.
While he denied the emergency restraining order, Judge Hinkle allowed the lawsuit to move forward.
And he put Detzner on notice that he would be available for future emergency hearings if the state “ramps up” the voter purge without making sure the list was less error-riddled.
Scott insists that no citizens have been wrongly removed from the voting rolls as a result of the purge but that about 100 non-citizens were found to have been registered to vote.
Many of the 2,600 flagged individuals on the list given out in April turned out to be naturalized citizens and therefore eligible to vote, Hinkle noted.
“Questioning someone’s citizenship unnecessarily is not as trivial as the state would have it,” Hinkle scolded. “But leaving an ineligible voter on the list is not a solution. People need to know we are running an honest election.”
Send Gov. Scott an email showing your support
“If the effect of the NVRA (Motor Voter) is to force a state to allow never-eligible non-citizens the opportunity to vote,” he wrote, “then the statute might violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, which guarantees that the right to vote cannot be denied by a dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote.”
As for the Voting Rights Act claim, Detzner wrote, Florida already received federal permission to remove noncitizens, which is clearly spelled out in Florida law.
What’s more, the Voting Rights Act applies to only five Florida counties — Monroe, Hillsborough, Collier, Hardee and Hendry — and not the other 62 in Florida, including Miami-Dade, where about 1,600 of the 2,700 potential noncitizens were initially identified by the state in a database created by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
About 500 people in Miami-Dade have been found to be lawful citizens and voters, and 13 noncitizens have been found. Two of them might have voted and could face prosecution. The county has been unable to verify the citizenship of more than 1,100 others.
Assuming the purge halts, those people could vote this year — even if some are noncitizens.
"Not a single eligible voter as far, as I know, has been removed from the voter rolls," Scott said Wednesday on WNDB radio in Daytona Beach, according to a News Service of Florida transcript. "Not one. And we’re working to keep it that way."
"Their vote should not be diluted by people who don’t have the right to vote," Scott said. "We need to be reviewing our voter rolls and making sure only those individuals who have the right to vote … are voting."
“This hardly seems like an approach earnestly designed to protect the integrity of elections and to ensure that eligible voters have their votes counted,” said the letter, written by Scott’s hand-picked secretary of state, Ken Detzner, a fellow Republican.
Detzner also submitted a list of four questions that he wants the DOJ to answer:
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Take that Eric Holder. And tomorrow I hope they hand you another slap in the face with your contempt charge.
I doubt you’ll have the decency to resign. Thugs like you just take it in stride and keep up the criminal activity.
YES!
All I want for my birthday tomorrow is for 5 men in black robes to say UNCONSTITUTIONAL ! (with regards to DeathCare)
That’s all. It will cover my birthdays and holidays for decades.
WOO-HOO! THANKS for the link!
Well done Rick Scott!!!!
More news coming out:
Federal Judge Upholds Florida’s Voting Roll Scrub
Judge rejects U.S. request to stop Florida voter purge
Judge denies request to stop voter purge
Read more here:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/06/judge-denies-request-to-stop-voter-purge.html
As unpopular as he is, Rick Scott is the man. And a hell of a nice guy. Had a great chat with him at a Tea Party rally in Tally about a month ago. Couldn’t meet a nicer guy! Keep up the good fight Rick!!
bumping for later...
I’ve been wondering what was going on in FL with this, this is great news for Fair Elections! Lets get the other States to follow suite and get on it!
Couldn’t agree more. Problem is that he is not pretty like Rubio so he doesn’t have much of a chance on the national stage.
Scott is following the Texas model and is very much in competition with Perry for bringing private sector jobs to Florida. He loves to compete!
He doesn’t want a place on the national stage. He ran the largest hospital company in the world, is rich, is working for $1.00 a year, and loves the state of Florida. Screw the national stage. He made tough/unpopular decisions early on just so he could prove results after four years. He is goony looking(like Lord Voldemort), but most msm photos are unflattering. His heart is with us tea partners.
This matter of free, fair and honest elections is much greater than any one state. This has been proven by the results of the Bush/Gore election, and how Florida ultimately determined the winner, and by the narrowest of margin. Had the dangling chads fiasco allowed Gore to become president, then every voter that cast a vote for Bush in all fifty states would have been cheated.
This is why it is so important for the federal authorities to exhibit an unbiased effort to help ensure that the federal elections in every state are legitimate. Otherwise, we as a republic are doomed.
The mere fact that this sentence could be written at all is what is so amazing.
Taking NON-CITIZENS off the voter rolls is about as clearly constitutional as anything a government could do.
Let's hope that Zero doesn't let him resign. We need that pinata to hang around and ensure Zero's defeat in NOV.
This is why we have no business allowing Spain to count the votes on their machines.
It’s not fair! Illegal aliens and dead people are two of the Democrats’ most reliable voting blocks.
And the judge was appointed by Bill Clinton in 1996, so Holder and the rest of the radicals can’t whine that he’s a racist Republican judge. Haha.
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