"I've been Floridaed!"

"I've been Floridaed!" (Florida-ed) This will be heard in Florida and around the nation as Republican governors and legislatures try to purge their voting rolls of Democratic voters. This effort is wrapped around a patriotic call to ensure that likely Democratic voters don't get to actually vote. To quote Ken Detzner, the Florida Secretary of State:

“Florida voters need to know only eligible citizens can cast a ballot and we’re doing everything in our power to ensure that is the case.”

A translation: We're going to make you prove you're a citizen! And the government never makes mistakes!

Mr Detzner's spokesman, Chris Cate, said:

“Nobody should be OK with ineligible voters being on the rolls. We're simply trying to address that. And we aren’t more concerned or doing this because this is election year. This isn’t an election year issue. This is a voting integrity issue, something we worry about all the time.”

Here's how the process works: the people involved in the purge get a list of folk from the driving license people, and another from the voter registration folk. They match the names up. And then submit the list back to the driving license people, who run it through a secret(ive) Federal database that lists whether someone is a legal resident or a citizen. And... If you've become a citizen since you last got a driving license, you get a letter that accuses you of a felony and have to prove that you're eligible to vote.

(Yes, I know there's a step missing in my description. It seems to be missing from the actual process as well.)

What also seems to be missing from the whole process is any actual respect for the citizen, with the assumption of guilt and the all-too-obvious xenophobia and political power-grabbing.

Shame on Florida. After the shenanigans and stupidity of the 2000 election, you'd think the powers that be would run from anything that makes it looks as partizan as Ken Detzner is being, and also do what it can avoid being a political laughing stock. Instead, Mr Detzner is hell-bent on proving that it's not only Arizona's politicians and right wing who are xenophobic race-baiters.

Carolyn Ann

PS I am *not* a citizen of the United States, and I don't vote in its election. I have never registered to vote, but I have a driver's license and am a legal resident. <- That's for any of the xenophobes who happen to read this. :-)