Before the 2000 election, 57,700 voters were purged from the rolls in Florida because they were supposedly convicted felons – convicted in Florida or in some other state. At least 90 percent of them were not convicted felons and 54 percent were black or Hispanic. In this recent article from the May 17, 2004 issue of The Nation – http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040517&s=palast – Greg Palast alleges that this purge is happening again, and in fact is encouraged by the terms of the Help America Vote Act. “HAVA not only blesses such purges, it requires all fifty states to implement a similar search-and-destroy mission against vulnerable voters. Specifically, every state must, by the 2004 election, imitate Florida’s system of computerizing voter files. The law then empowers fifty secretaries of state–fifty Katherine Harrises–to purge these lists of ‘suspect’ voters.” Furthermore, if blacks do get to vote their votes are more likely than white voters’ to be discounted as “spoiled ballots” – nationwide, the number of ballots “spoiled” in any county or precinct is directly proportional to its black population. So says Greg Palast. Does anybody say different?
Gee, I suppose they didnt notice that almost HALF were WHITE…maybe the lily white disenfranchised should complain about discrimination … oh, wait a sec, it is only black and hispanic that get discriminated against, them whities got what was coming to them… :dubious:
Come on, granted the people checking the list for qualifications could be a tad more accurate…but really, isn’t this stretching it a bit…4% difference in numbers doesn’t sound like rampant discrimination to me, just 90% of them not actually being disqualified is simply sloppy work.
Maybe you should agitate by demanding better quality assurance on the job instead of some silly 4% difference meaning rank discrimination. :smack:
That’s an 8% difference (54 - 46), not 4%. And whether it indicates discrimination or not would depend on the proportion of blacks in the underlying population. If the area were 25% black, and 54% of disqualified voters were black, that would look a lot like discrimination to me. If the population were 54% black, then that’s a bit different. So, what proportion of the Florida population is black or hispanic?
well it’s a big difference if the ratio of black to white in that area isn’t 50/50. This is an interesting part of the article
Seems shady to me.
You know every time I have a point today someone beats me to it. I should just give up. :smack:
According to the Encarta, Florida’s population of 15.9 million in 2000 was 78% white, 14.6% black, 16.8% Hispanic, 1.7% Asian, 0.3% Native American, 0.1% Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, 5.3% of mixed heritage or not reporting race.
Giving us a grand total of 116.8%
No wonder Bush won Florida! 
Well, here’s the relevant paragraph from the Encarta article:
Since Hispanics “may be of any race,” that category may include some that are also counted in the white, black, and Native American categories.
Don’t get it! Who and what counties purged these supposedly non-felons from the rolls? Most of the counties where the “supposedly and real felons” reside, I think are controlled by Democrats … :rolleyes:
Oh, okay. Well, that makes more sense.
But the purging process was not controlled by the locally elected supervisors of elections, it was controlled by the Secretary of State, Katherine Harris.
Hillsborough and Alachua were predominant, but since it was a statewide purge, all counties were affected to some degree.
Why else did you think Katherine Harris and the GOP purged them?
But then, Senggüm, I suspect you wouldn’t object to preventing Democrats from exercising their right to vote…
Like those those in military service overseas … :rolleyes
Like seeing my name in bold.
Was someone suggesting that those those in military service shouldn’t vote?
No, they just didn’t want to count their votes in Florida, many were blacks!
This thread is getting sidetracked. What happened in Florida in 2000 is just the background. What’s done is done. But we have another election coming up. The important question is, is Palast correct that HAVA encourages or even requires the states to purge “suspect” voters from the roles? And if so, how will that affect the outcome of the election (both presidential and congressional)? And is there anything that can be done about it before the election?
Sorry for posting while tired…my math goes to hell in a handbasket when I am tired.
Dude, does it even matter? ROUGHLY EQUAL numbers of black and hispanic to white were stricken. How about the more important problem that they fucked up 90% of the records…I will say it again NINETY PERCENT were not prior felons/disqualifiable due to what ever reasons.
Come on, who cares what color you are if you get stricken for no cause. How about actually focusing on something other than color like gross imcompetency? I seriously doubt that there is any deep inner racial issue to this. I do see a competency issue.
The NAACP were asleep in Florida; they should have had that stopped befoe the election.
Dude, your understanding of basic math (or lack thereof) is embarrassing. Blacks + Hispanics comprise, roughly, 31% of the Florida population. Whites are 78% of the population. Their representation on the wrongly stricken list is disproportionate to their representation in the general population. If majority and minority representations were ROUGHLY EQUAL, you’d expect consistent proportions. So it DOES matter!
Got it?
It’s troubling that anyone was wrongly kept from doing their civic duty. But it’s especially troubling that specific groups appear to be especially vunerable to this error. We’re talking about politics…where race matters. Florida is in the South, a region that has a bad legacy of barring groups from the polls. This is reminiscent of that, and it’s scary. Anyone who can’t see that has their head in the sand.
As for the OP, I have no idea if it’s happening again. The cynic in me wouldn’t be surprised if it is. But if my name or the name of a loved one appears on any felony list, keeping us from voting in November, I will be so pissed that I may very well committ a felony.
Sorry. The above quote is from aruvqan.