Fla. Scraps Flawed Felon Voting List

From the AP via the New York Times courtesy of Eschaton, an update on an earlier Real Art post:

Florida elections officials said Saturday they will not use a disputed list that was designed to keep felons from voting, acknowledging a flaw that could have allowed convicted Hispanic felons to cast ballots in November.

The glitch in a state that President Bush won by just 537 votes could have been significant -- because of the state's sizable Cuban population, Hispanics in Florida have tended to vote Republican more than Hispanics nationally. The list had about 28,000 Democrats and around 9,500 Republicans, with most of the rest unaffiliated.

"Not including Hispanic felons that may be voters on the list ... was an oversight and a mistake," Gov. Jeb Bush said. "And we accept responsibility and that's why we're pulling it back."

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Well, that's really nice of ol' Jeb and all, but there are a few outstanding issues here. First, the only reason this list was released to the public was because CNN and other news organizations sued the state. Second, the Hispanic thing is only part of the problem: as with the 2000 Florida voter purge, numerous African-American Democrats who are not felons have been added to the list, anyway. Finally, if I understand correctly, the exact same Republican dominated private firm who got the contract to generate the faulty list last time is doing the same thing now. "Oversight" my ass.

My bet is that this list, or some slightly altered version, ends up being used anyway. Either that or the GOP rigs the election with the new electronic voting machines which leave no record to be inspected later. You can't win for losing in GOP USA.

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