Judge: Florida Voter Purge Can Go On

A federal judge in Fort Lauderdale ruled Thursday that Florida’s purge of potential noncitizens on the voter rolls can go on.

U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch said federal law does not prohibit the state from removing voters who were never lawfully eligible to register in the first place. Florida has identified 198 voters as potential noncitizens — among an estimated 11.4 million registered voters — and sent the names to independent county elections supervisors for their review.

A coalition of liberal-leaning voting-rights groups had asked the court to halt the purge, arguing in a hearing Monday that federal law prohibits purging the voter rolls 90 days before an election.

Attorneys for Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner countered that the state could purge noncitizens at any time because they should have never been on the voter rolls.

“We’re very pleased another federal court has ruled that Florida’s efforts to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls are lawful and in the best interest of Florida voters,” Detzner said in a statement Thursday. “Ensuring ineligible voters can’t cast a ballot is a fundamental aspect of conducting fair elections.”

Zloch’s ruling follows one issued by a Tallahassee federal judge in June in a separate case filed by the U.S. Justice Department. That judge also opined that the 90-day purge prohibition in the 1993 National Voter Registration Act applies to people lawfully registered to vote, such as felons, and is silent as to noncitizens.

Zloch reached a similar conclusion. The 90-day purge prohibition, he ruled, applies to voters who have recently changed their address, but not to people who should not be on the rolls, such as minors or noncitizens.

“Certainly, the NVRA does not require the State to idle on the sidelines until a noncitizen violates the law before the State can act,” he wrote. “And surely the NVRA does not require the State to wait until after the critical juncture — when the vote has been cast and the harm has been fully realized — to address what it views as nothing short of ‘voter fraud.’”

Gov. Rick Scott’s administration has cited fraud as the reason for moving forward with the purge, despite critics’ concerns that lawful voters will be wrongly blocked from voting. Some of the people on the list of 198 potential noncitizens, based on a federal citizenship database, have told the Miami Herald they were citizens. Others said they are not.

About 58 percent of those on the list are minorities — 41 percent Hispanic and 17 percent black.

A poll released Thursday and conducted last week by Latino Decisions for America’s Voice, a Washington D.C.-based immigrant-rights group, found that 45 percent of Hispanic voters in Florida are “very concerned” over the noncitizen voter purge.

“What we’re saying is that going after U.S. citizens with Hispanic and Haitian last names and potentially disenfranchising them is not the right way,” said Jose Suarez, communications director for 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, one of the groups that sued over the purge. “The state has to find a better way.”

The labor union sued after the names of two of its members who are citizens came up in an earlier list of potential noncitizens. Four other groups joined the lawsuit; Zloch also ruled Thursday that two of those groups did not have the legal grounds to sue.

On the remaining portion of the lawsuit, the coalition had argued that the purge has had a chilling effect on voters and required the groups to divert resources toward identifying citizens wrongly identified on the state’s list.

But Zloch said none of that outweighed Florida’s interest in maintaining the integrity of the Nov. 6 election.

The state, he ruled, “has a compelling interest in ensuring that the voting rights of citizens are not diluted by the casting of votes by noncitizens.”

Liberals lose lawsuit to keep illegal voters on voter rolls.

What great news!! We must keep fighting the voter fraud of the DEMS!

That is why electing honest folks to the position of Supervisor of Elections in each Florida County is so very important! I hope ALL Florida voters will help elect the best person in their particular FL county!

Voters in Orange County have the chance to elect Dan Fanelli as their Supervisor of Elections on November 6th! My hubby and I know Dan personally, and he will make sure Orange County voters have fair and honest elections!
Please give your support to Dan here: http://www.ocfordan.com/

Please read below!
Orange County Voters need to elect Dan Fanelli as their Supervisor Of Elections!

NEWS RELEASE – Oct 2, 2012
Attorney General, Election Commission Receive Charges of Criminal
Violations of Fla. Statutes by Orange Election Supervisor Bill Cowles

WINTER PARK, FLA – The offices of Florida State Attorney General, Florida Election Commission, Florida Division of Elections, and Commission on Ethics are all in possession of charges that Orange County Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles has more than a half-dozen violations of state statutes dealing mostly with the retesting of the county’s ballot-counting machines, which tabulated the wrong ballot totals on the pre-Primary evaluation.

Daniel R. Fanelli, who is running against Cowles in the coming November elections, filed the charges this week with the various state agencies.
Fanelli’s complaint includes charges that Cowles:

· Failed to publicly notice the retesting of machines that failed the recent Logic & Accuracy test on Aug. 1, and failed to publicly notice the retest 48 hours in advance; · Failed to appoint a Canvassing Board Member to attend the retest;
· Allowed only a technician and two of the technician’s assistants to be present during the retest;
· Failed to notify the public or the candidates that the retest was going to take place;
· Failed to complete the testing before voting began;
· Failed to allow Fanelli (the only candidate present) to verify the results of the unnoticed earlier test, or to visually inspect the required “resetting” of the voting machines (Fanelli was quarantined in a fenced area some distance from the machines, and was unable to visually witness the “resetting” or “zeroing” of the tabulating equipment, as guaranteed by Florida statutes. His requests to move closer to the machines being tested was denied by Cowles’ attorney, as witnessed by Dorothy Lambert);
· Failed to comply with Florida Statutes by willfully not complying with the provisions above.
Chapter 104.051 of the Florida Statutes: ”(1) “Any official who willfully violates any of the provisions of this election code shall be excluded from the polls. Any election official who is excluded shall be replaced as provided in this code. (2) Any official who willfully refuses or willfully neglects to perform his or her duties as prescribed by this election code is guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.”

It should be noted that Cowles complied with the applicable statutes to notice the August 1 L&A test (the same test where the machines failed), so there is no question that he has knowledge of the statutory provisions. Cowles has been the Orange Supervisor of Elections for 16 years, thus, he is well aware that testing must be noticed in advance, that a member of the Canvassing Board must be present at the testing of the tabulating equipment, that the public and others must be noticed and that any candidate is allowed to view the resetting of the tabulating machines. It appears possible, or even likely, that Cowles willfully and knowingly disregarded the Florida Statutes during the last election. The failed test could have been done in July, instead of waiting until August 1, just three days before early voting would begin for the August 14 election.
Cowles’ actions may have jeopardized the integrity of our elections and violated the public trust. By not noticing the required retest, it appears Cowles was attempting to protect his reputation or that of his office by avoiding the publicity that would result from failing such an important test during an election year, or simply that he is ignorant of the statutory requirements of his office.

Fanelli: “If the current Supervisor of Elections cannot administer a test of only approximately 650 ballots without multiple errors, how can we have confidence that under his supervision it can accurately oversee a countywide election of more than 650,000 registered voters in 227 precincts?”
When the Aug. 1 test failed, Cowles had insufficient time to schedule the retest, which by law, must be properly noticed and completed before early voting started on August 4. However, the Canvassing Board did not meet until August 6 to review and approve the retest results, and then zero the tested machines to ensure the 650 “test” votes were not included in the actual election results.

Fanelli is a 1978 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, served honorably in the Navy for 20 years (8.5 years active duty, 11.5 years in the Naval Reserves), became a pilot for Northwest Airlines (was the Captain of a flight diverted on approach into Washington, D.C. during the 9-11 terrorist attacks), and was a Congressional Candidate against Alan Grayson in 2010.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.