Florida purging eligible voters again.

[SirNitram]

Link

MIAMI — Hispanic, Democratic and independent-minded voters are the most likely to be targeted in a state hunt to remove thousands of noncitizens from Florida's voting rolls, a Miami Herald computer analysis of elections records has found.

Whites and Republicans are disproportionately the least-likely to face the threat of removal, the analysis of a list of more than 2,600 potential noncitizens shows. The list was first compiled by the state and furnished to county election supervisors and then the Herald.

The numbers change by the day. The state's Division of Elections says it initially identified roughly 180,000 potential noncitizens by performing a search of a computer database that doesn't have the most-updated information.

About 58 percent of those identified as potential noncitizens are Hispanics, Florida's largest ethnic immigrant population. They make up just 13 percent of the overall 11.3 million active registered voters.

Those who have been flagged as potential noncitizens by the state are being contacted by county election supervisors. Many legitimate voters aren't happy with what they see as a needless hassle from a government using bad data.

"I'm upset, because if someone is an American citizen, it is his right to vote. How can they be asking for this?" said Juan Artabe, a 41-year-old Democrat from Cuba who said he became a citizen in 2009.

"Very poor job by the elections department," Artabe said. He said he was contacted last week by the Miami-Dade elections office and sent in a copy of his citizenship papers so he wasn't struck from the voter rolls.

About two-thirds of the potential noncitizen matches so far have been in Miami-Dade, the state's largest county with the biggest immigrant population.

The election-year effort, led by a Republican-appointed secretary of state, has increasingly become a focus of concern among Democrats, liberals and civil liberties groups. They worry that the state could wind up removing lawful voters from the rolls.

But the state's elections officials say they're trying to make sure noncitizens — who aren't supposed to vote in Florida elections — aren't unlawfully casting ballots. Voter fraud is a third-degree felony.

"The Department of State has a duty under both state and federal laws to ensure that the voter registration rolls are current and accurate by conducting list maintenance," said Chris Cate, spokesman for Secretary of State Ken Detzner's agency, which oversees the elections division.

"If we receive credible and reliable information, we must act on it," Cate said. "Race or party never factor into the process. Our focus is on identifying and removing ineligible voters from the rolls because that's our job."

In this case, Florida went looking for potential noncitizen voters, following the lead of Republican secretaries of state in Colorado and New Mexico — two other Hispanic-heavy swing states this election year.

Florida elections officials compared information from the state's mammoth voter rolls with a Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles database that began collecting citizenship information relatively recently.

Many people register to vote at driver's license offices under the so-called "motor-voter" law. There's a chance that some noncitizens who get a license mistakenly fill out a voter-registration card. Some may willingly ignore the law that restricts Florida voting to U.S. citizens who are state residents.

Other noncitizens don't register to vote when they get their license. However, when those people become citizens, no one notifies the state.

So when the elections department compares the voter rolls with the highway safety database, there's a good chance that the citizenship information is out of date for some.

In Artabe's case, for instance, state data showed he last had a "transaction" with DHSMV in 2006 — three years before he says he became a citizen.

Enrique Barreto, a 54-year-old Republican, said he became a citizen in 2008 — about the time the state database records an interaction with DHSMV. He said he had received his letter from Miami-Dade County. But he hadn't read it yet.

"I thought it was proof required because it is an election year," said Barreto, of Miami, who was born in Cuba. He said he became a citizen in 2008, when he voted in the presidential election.

The state has requested access to federal citizenship databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, which has stonewalled the request of Florida and Colorado as they've hunted for noncitizen voters.

Not all have voted.

Of the roughly 1,600 potential noncitizens in Miami-Dade furnished to the Miami Herald, about 65 percent have cast ballots. About 72 percent have cast ballots of the 262 identified in Broward County. And roughly 30 percent of the 115 identified in Palm Beach County have voted in the past.

Hispanics dominate the numbers because they're Florida's biggest immigrant group and the state's fastest-growing electoral demographic.

When they register to vote, Hispanics are flocking to the Democratic Party or to the no-party-affiliation label — nicknamed "NPA" — a sign the Republican Party's hard-line immigration stances are turning off Latinos.

Those potential noncitizens who register as NPAs have been disproportionately flagged in the state's computer sweep. About 38 percent of all potential noncitizens are NPAs, who make up just 20 percent of the overall electorate.

Democrats are the most-likely to be flagged, in large part because their party has the biggest ranks in Florida. They make up 40 percent of the voter rolls and 40 percent of the potential noncitizens.

Republicans account for 36 percent of the overall voter rolls but only 21 percent of the potential noncitizens on the state's list. The Republican Party is disproportionately white non-Hispanic as well. Only 13 percent of the potential-noncitizen list is white, though whites account for more than 68 percent of the overall Florida active voter rolls.

Blacks account for about 13 percent of the overall voter rolls and roughly 14 percent of the potential noncitizen voter list.

The state's periodic efforts to clean the voter rolls are met with periodic resistance and questions about race-based purging from liberal-leaning groups like the American Civil Liberties Union. It fought the state's last effort, in 2008, to remove new voters from the rolls if their voting information didn't match their government-issued identification cards.

In 2000, the elections division's move to strip felons from the rolls may have wrongly removed hundreds, if not thousands, of potential voters before the presidential election that Florida voters decided by just 537 votes.

"Based on Florida's regrettable experience with voter purges," said Howard Simon, ACLU of Florida's executive director, "it would be a mistake to rely on the accuracy of the state's data — especially data from the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles that is acknowledged by the DHSMV to be out of date."

Databases are seldom 100 percent accurate. And that makes finding exact matches difficult.

As a result, after receiving the names from the state, county elections officials are now personally contacting potential noncitizens to sort out their voting status. They'll have about 60 days to prove that they're citizens.

"To say to already registered voters 'come down and prove who you are,' I'm not sure there's anything in the law that says that," said Mark Herron, an elections lawyer and expert who primarily represents Democrats. "But I don't think there's anything in the law that prohibits this, either."

In Miami, 63-year-old Jose Arguelles, a Republican who emigrated from Cuba in the late 1990s, had mixed emotions about the state's efforts. He said he became a citizen "four or five years ago." About the same time, he came into contact with the DHSMV.

Arguelles said he is not concerned about having his name appear on the list.

"I don't have any worry about it," he said. "If they tried to contact me, nothing is going to happen, because I am already a citizen."

But Arguelles also said he would be wary of sending sensitive documents such as a copy of his passport or naturalization certificate to the elections department by mail.

"I'm not going to release private information just because they're asking," he said.

Disproportionately affecting a minority, the opposition party, and those who don't toe the line? I'd be shocked if this hadn't happened already.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I do wish that the Federal Governemt would really prosecute obvious violations of 1963 law....

college students were beaten shot, and BURRIED ALIVE protecting voting rights. (discovered by the FBI the missisppi burning students actually tried to dig their way out of the earth berm they were buried in.

[Grumman]

MIAMI — Hispanic, Democratic and independent-minded voters are the most likely to be targeted in a state hunt to remove thousands of noncitizens from Florida's voting rolls, a Miami Herald computer analysis of elections records has found.

Disproportionately affecting a minority, the opposition party, and those who don't toe the line? I'd be shocked if this hadn't happened already.

Are you sure it's disproportionate? Even if every person in the country was a citizen and entitled to vote, it seems self-evident that, without access to the primary evidence (a yes/no answer from the DHS's database), first generation immigrants are going to have built up less secondary evidence than those who were born in the country. Just knowing they were born in the US already tells you that they have the right to vote by default, whereas an immigrant first has to become a citizen.

[Flagg]

So glad I abandoned that herpes encrusted dick of a sinking ship. Wasn't bad enough we were the laughingstock of the nation in 2000 but they wanna do it again. Good old WA with thier mail in ballots and no republican bullfuckery.

[Phantasee]

This seems reasonable enough to me. The fact they are contacting the individuals to confirm citizenship or eligibility seems like a positive sign this isn't as much about eliminating opposition as much as it is about just making sure no citizens do not vote.

[SirNitram]

MIAMI — Hispanic, Democratic and independent-minded voters are the most likely to be targeted in a state hunt to remove thousands of noncitizens from Florida's voting rolls, a Miami Herald computer analysis of elections records has found.

Disproportionately affecting a minority, the opposition party, and those who don't toe the line? I'd be shocked if this hadn't happened already.

Are you sure it's disproportionate? Even if every person in the country was a citizen and entitled to vote, it seems self-evident that, without access to the primary evidence (a yes/no answer from the DHS's database), first generation immigrants are going to have built up less secondary evidence than those who were born in the country. Just knowing they were born in the US already tells you that they have the right to vote by default, whereas an immigrant first has to become a citizen.

I'm not sure what else this description of the analysis could mean but disproportionate focus.

[SirNitram]

This seems reasonable enough to me. The fact they are contacting the individuals to confirm citizenship or eligibility seems like a positive sign this isn't as much about eliminating opposition as much as it is about just making sure no citizens do not vote.

It could be. It could be innocent! Except I don't trust Florida with it's track record on this, I don't trust it when the DHSMV that supplied this data explicitly says it's out of date. And given the DOJ's suspicions on earlier Florida voting law changes being intentionally discriminatory(Court filing stating so: Here).

[Phantasee]

Data is imperfect. That's the real world. As long as they're aware that the data is out of date, and have taken appropriate precautions (like giving them two months to confirm their eligibility to vote), I don't see a big issue with that. They're using the best data they have access to, since DHS isn't sharing more up to date lists of citizens.

[Mr Bean]

Data is imperfect. That's the real world. As long as they're aware that the data is out of date, and have taken appropriate precautions (like giving them two months to confirm their eligibility to vote), I don't see a big issue with that. They're using the best data they have access to, since DHS isn't sharing more up to date lists of citizens.

The last time Florida did this for convicted felons before 2000 the end result was a 5% rate. 5% it's pretty high your saying of wrongly identifying people as convicted felons and I'd agree it's way to high... except the 5% rate refers to the fact the first purge list they put out had over 2000 names of which only 5% were actual convicted felons meaning of the 2000 people way over a thousand people were misidentified and purged without verification. This of course comes because they are using third parties who bid the lowest on the contract and were getting payed by how many names they found in addition to time spent.

Here's an idea and it's a simple one, the burden of proof should be on the state to prove that once someone is on the voting record that they are not a citizen/are a felon.

[kc8tbe]

I wonder if this could "backfire" for the Republicans, essentially motivating the Democrat-enriched minorities who are contacted to exercise their right to vote.

[JME2]

This seems reasonable enough to me. The fact they are contacting the individuals to confirm citizenship or eligibility seems like a positive sign this isn't as much about eliminating opposition as much as it is about just making sure no citizens do not vote.

It could be. It could be innocent! Except I don't trust Florida with it's track record on this, I don't trust it when the DHSMV that supplied this data explicitly says it's out of date. And given the DOJ's suspicions on earlier Florida voting law changes being intentionally discriminatory(Court filing stating so: Here).

Likewise. Given the black mark of 2000, I'm suspicious of Florida's actions here.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Data is imperfect. That's the real world. As long as they're aware that the data is out of date, and have taken appropriate precautions (like giving them two months to confirm their eligibility to vote), I don't see a big issue with that. They're using the best data they have access to, since DHS isn't sharing more up to date lists of citizens.

That is not an appropriate precaution. Do you think they have the man hours to vet 173k names in two months? The board of elections is not that well staffed before election day, I imagine. It is the perfect scheme to disenfranchise tens of thousands of people likely to vote for your political opponents.

Step 1) go through a database you know to be out of date with regard to citizenship status, identify anyone who's citizenship is not listed either because they are recent citizens, they have not dealt with the department of motor vehicles in a while, or they declined to answer the question. This will disproportionately affect hispanics, blacks, the poor, and old people who all tend to vote democrat.

Step 2) send them a letter to their last address on file with the out of date motor vehicle division. Thus, the letters may not ever reach them, because people do not change their driver's license address information and get a new card whenever they move. This prevents a good chunk of them from ever receiving their notices.

Step 3) Make it prohibitively difficult to prove citizenship status by making people use snail mail.

Step 4) The board of elections, off election day, is not very well manned to begin with. They cannot possibly vet tens of thousands or even upwards of 100 thousand names in a few months. So people who send in their paperwork will go on The Waiting List, and oh how tragic it will be if you dont process them in time.

[SirNitram]

Apparently, the situation is much worse than we're thinking. While I was paranoid, and others, on this site and others, think it's appropriate, and others just find it ill-timed, the DOJ(Which likely has more data on this than us), has ordered it's halt.

Letter is here: Link

Short version from what I know: Violation of National Voter Registration Act, which requires voter list maintenence be done and over 90 days before an election; the next is on August 14th. In short, it had to have been completed by May 16th. No word on response from Florida yet.