# Florida Republicans Admit Voter Suppression Was The Goal Of New Election Laws **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 27, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305 "2012-11-27T20:41:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/1 "2012-11-27T20:41:39Z")
For those who thought that making restrictive voting laws was all about the “integrity of elections” and to ensure “illegal aliens didn’t vote” (we’ll see if the biggest supporter of these theories here, **Bricker** , rears his head), well, Republicans down in Florida were refreshingly candid about their attempts to actively disenfranchise Democratic voters: > [@](#): > > Floridians endured election chaos and marathon voting lines this year, largely thanks to [reduced early voting hours](http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/11/04/1135571/after-republicans-restrict-early-voting-hours-floridians-wait-more-than-6-hours-to-vote/), [voter purges](http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/09/13/842661/florida-supervisors-of-elections-speak-out-against-new-voter-purge/), and [voter registration restrictions](http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/29/769031/rick-scott-voter-registration-suppression-law-dead/) pushed by Republican legislators. In an [exclusive report](http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/early-voting-curbs-called-power-play/nTFDy/) by the Palm Beach Post, several prominent Florida Republicans are now admitting that these election law changes were geared toward suppressing minority and Democratic votes. > > Former governor Charlie Crist (R-FL) and former GOP chairman Jim Greer (R-FL), as well as several current GOP members, told the Post that Republican consultants pushed the new measures as a way to suppress Democratic voters. Crist expanded early voting hours in 2008 despite party pressure, but Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) targeted early voting almost immediately when he took office in 2011. Scott’s administration claimed the new laws were meant to curb in-person voter fraud, despite the fact that an individual in Florida is more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud. > > Current party members and consultants confirmed the motive was not to stop voter fraud but to make it harder for Democrats and minorities to vote: > > > [@](#): > > > > Wayne Bertsch, who handles local and legislative races for Republicans, said he knew targeting Democrats was the goal. “In the races I was involved in in 2008, when we started seeing the increase of turnout and the turnout operations that the Democrats were doing in early voting, it certainly sent a chill down our spines. And in 2008, it didn’t have the impact that we were afraid of. It got close, but it wasn’t the impact that they had this election cycle,” Bertsch said, referring to the fact that Democrats picked up seven legislative seats in Florida in 2012 despite the early voting limitations. > > > > Another GOP consultant, who did not want to be named, also confirmed that influential consultants to the Republican Party of Florida were intent on beating back Democratic turnout in early voting after 2008. > > > > […]A GOP consultant who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution said black voters were a concern. “I know that the cutting out of the Sunday before Election Day was one of their targets only because that’s a big day when the black churches organize themselves,” he said. > > Though the state ultimately went to President Obama, the Republican effort to suppress votes was largely successful. A post-election report found that new voting restrictions led to a huge increase in provisional ballots, which are cast when there is some question of the voter’s eligibility. > > [Think Progress](http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/26/1234171/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/) ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/2 "2012-11-27T21:01:03Z")
This is a bit off-topic, but was I the only one who found the statement “an individual in Florida is more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud” odd? One is an uncontrollable (as far as we know - dun dun dun!) externality, and the other is a personal choice, unless they’re thinking of coercion, but that’d be even rarer, I’d think. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/3 "2012-11-27T21:15:27Z")
If you don’t want to wait for \*\*Bricker \*\*to show up, you can visit his post [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15737676&postcount=3083)- in which, essentially, he says, neither Greer nor Crist are credible. So really … nothing to see here. There. Don’t you feel silly now? ---
**Author:** ![vd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b19c9b/32.png) [@vd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vd)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/4 "2012-11-27T21:38:33Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > This is a bit off-topic, but was I the only one who found the statement “an individual in Florida is more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud” odd? One is an uncontrollable (as far as we know - dun dun dun!) externality, and the other is a personal choice, unless they’re thinking of coercion, but that’d be even rarer, I’d think. Clearly there needs to be a national “people who have been hit by lightning” database to keep these people from voting.:mad: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/5 "2012-11-27T21:51:27Z")
[Guess what else?](http://www.thenation.com/article/171404/gops-voter-suppression-strategy) > [@](#): > > After the 2010 election, in more than a dozen states Republicans passed voting restrictions aimed at reducing the turnout of Obama’s “coalition of the ascendant”—young voters, African-Americans and Hispanics. The strategy didn’t work as intended. Ten major restrictive voting laws were blocked in court over the past year, and turnout among young, black and Latino voters increased as a share of the electorate in 2012 compared with 2008. The youth vote rose from 18 to 19 percent, and the minority vote increased from 26 to 28 percent; both went heavily for Obama. > > A backlash against voter suppression added to this increased youth and minority turnout. “When they went after big mama’s voting rights, they made all of us mad,” said the Rev. Tony Minor, Ohio coordinator of the African American Ministers Leadership Council. The black vote rose in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia, while the Latino vote grew in Florida, Colorado and Nevada. “There were huge organizing efforts in the black, Hispanic and Asian communities, more than there would’ve been, as a direct result of the voter suppression efforts,” says Matt Barreto, co-founder of Latino Decisions, a Latino polling and research firm. > > In late September, Project New America, a Denver center-left research group, tested more than thirty messages on “sporadic, less likely voters who lean Democratic” (which included young, black and Hispanic voters) to see what would motivate them to vote. “One of the most powerful messages across many different demographics was reminding people that their votes were important to counter the extremists who are kicking people off of voter rolls,” the group wrote in a post-election memo. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/6 "2012-11-27T21:56:10Z")
But…but…but…it’s leeeeeeeeeegal! That’s all that matters! Seriously, could anyone be surprised by this revelation? Of course it was meant to suppress the vote, just like the Republican speaker of the Pennsylvania House boasted that the voter ID law would give his state to Rmoney. Other nations must think we’re a bunch of idiots, and that’s only because we are. We boast of being the cradle of liberty, yet we can’t run an election without having people wait in line for hours? What’s the deal? Modern voting machines are not that damned expensive. Triple the number of booths. Double the number of poll workers. If we ran things efficiently we wouldn’t even need early voting. My own state of Michigan does not have early voting, and the most I have ever waited to vote was a half hour. Why are some states so damned incompetent? ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/7 "2012-11-27T22:26:54Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > If you don’t want to wait for \*\*Bricker \*\*to show up, you can visit his post [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15737676&postcount=3083)- in which, essentially, he says, neither Greer nor Crist are credible. So really … nothing to see here. > > There. Don’t you feel silly now? Heh. When I saw the OP’s link mentioned Crist I knew that was all some folks would need to hand wave away everything that followed. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/8 "2012-11-27T22:48:49Z")
Lot of things that were sure to work didn’t. All that money, for instance. As another ThinkProgress piece noted, outside PACs poured fifty million dollars into the race to defeat Sherrod Brown. He had a five point edge when they started buying negative ads…fifty million dollars!..and when they were done, he won by…wait for it!..five points. What miracle is this? That Citizens United doesn’t matter? You can’t just buy five pounds of political power like five pounds of hamburger? Dare we hope? We do dare, do dare! ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/9 "2012-11-28T00:13:10Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Lot of things that were sure to work didn’t. All that money, for instance. As another ThinkProgress piece noted, outside PACs poured fifty million dollars into the race to defeat Sherrod Brown. He had a five point edge when they started buying negative ads…fifty million dollars!..and when they were done, he won by…wait for it!..five points. > > What miracle is this? That Citizens United doesn’t matter? You can’t just buy five pounds of political power like five pounds of hamburger? Dare we hope? We do dare, do dare! The Republican Party and Rove and the fat cats have demonstrated that you **can** underestimate the intelligence of the American public. All it takes is being a fanatical partisan. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/10 "2012-11-28T00:44:21Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Why are some states so damned incompetent? That’s not a problem, that was the GOP’s goal all along. I really hope that Obama saying that we have to fix that (voter suppression) during his victory speech, we’ll actually have active action on this instead of simply reacting to each move by the GOP. We’ve known all along that’s their goal, these articles simply confirm it. The GOP is a bunch of nasty, fraudulent, shysters who will stop at nothing to try to steal power by any means necessary. They have the funding and the propaganda arm to fool a lot of people, but sometimes people push back. Unfortunately, even with the expanding minority and youth vote and the shrinking old white guy vote, they’re not going to just go away quietly. We have to fight to keep every single inch of ground we’ve gained and then fight for more, because if even a few of their tactics worked, if we didn’t have someone as terrific as Obama running, we would have lost. The American people would have lost. We cannot allow the GOP to gain power again ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/11 "2012-11-28T01:27:08Z")
Not only to we need equality of voting rights, we also need equality in voting opportunity. Nobody should have to stand on line for two hours-six hours to vote. To the extent that voting opportunity is a reflection of economic status, such problems are repugnant to the American ideals many of us revere and some of us pretend to. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/12 "2012-11-28T02:24:02Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Lot of things that were sure to work didn’t. All that money, for instance. As another ThinkProgress piece noted, outside PACs poured fifty million dollars into the race to defeat Sherrod Brown. He had a five point edge when they started buying negative ads…fifty million dollars!..and when they were done, he won by…wait for it!..five points. > > What miracle is this? That Citizens United doesn’t matter? You can’t just buy five pounds of political power like five pounds of hamburger? Dare we hope? We do dare, do dare! 1. Conservative billionaires think they are as skilled in politics as the professionals. They are naive. 2. They will get smarter. They will stop limiting themselves to advertising. They will refine the alchemy of turning money into power and power into money. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/13 "2012-11-28T02:35:59Z")
Well, thank you, Mr. Sunshine! ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/14 "2012-11-28T03:57:59Z")
Oh come on, even Bricker has never really denied this was the case, that’s why he always falls back on the “but it’s legal” argument. Everyone but the most uniformed doofus knows voter ID laws are meant to suppress minority votes. Most Republicans know full well what they’re for. This is the most open secret in the world. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/15 "2012-11-28T07:54:32Z")
Now, to be fair, the argument is somewhat more nuanced than that. Yes, he admits, such motives exist in _some_ Republicans, but liberal hypocrisy. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/16 "2012-11-28T13:01:34Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > If you don’t want to wait for \*\*Bricker \*\*to show up, you can visit his post [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15737676&postcount=3083)- in which, essentially, he says, neither Greer nor Crist are credible. He’s right, they’re not. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong, it’s just that no respected Republican is going to admit this as the goal. Not directly, anyway. They might have said during the campaign that the Voter ID law will help Romney win, but they can pretend they’re talking about voter fraud and voter confidence instead of voter disenfranchisement. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/17 "2012-11-28T19:03:17Z")
One of my more loony right wing friends just posted this link on FB: > [@](#): > > **American Revolution #2** > Massive vote fraud in 2012 elections threatens to eliminate free and fair elections. Will armed revolution be necessary? > > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player\_embedded&v=fgsDHwPRlN8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fgsDHwPRlN8) She picked it up from [Breitbart.com](http://Breitbart.com). Warning, it’s a Will Bill video\*, so it could cause your brain to implode. \*I always wonder if he’s any relation to Wildest Bill ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/18 "2012-11-28T19:19:58Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > He’s right, they’re not. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong, it’s just that no respected Republican is going to admit this as the goal. > > … If a Republican did admit it, he/she would immediately become, “not respected”. Sort of a Catch-22 situation. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/19 "2012-11-29T05:58:32Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > If a Republican did admit it, he/she would immediately become, “not respected”. Sort of a Catch-22 situation. The actual name would be the No True Scotsman Fallacy. ---
**Author:** ![Untoward\_Parable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Untoward\_Parable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Untoward_Parable)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305/20 "2012-11-29T06:52:47Z")
I really would like to see people prosecuted for treason for pursing this line of electoral strategy. The right to vote is as sacred to Americans as anything and someone using their official powers to obstruct the exercise of that right should suffer severe consequences. National exile would be my preference. (N. Korea would probably welcome their emigration) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-republicans-admit-voter-suppression-was-the-goal-of-new-election-laws/642305.md?page=2)