THE NEW JIM CROW: SAME OLD STORY
Florida List for Purge of Voters Proves Flawed

From the New York Times courtesy of Eschaton:

Florida election officials used a flawed method to come up with a listing of people believed to be convicted felons, a list that they are recommending be used to purge voter registration rolls, state officials acknowledged yesterday. As a result, voters identifying themselves as Hispanic are almost completely absent from that list.

Of nearly 48,000 Florida residents on the felon list, only 61 are Hispanic. By contrast, more than 22,000 are African-American.

About 8 percent of Florida voters describe themselves as Hispanic, and about 11 percent as black.

In a presidential-election battleground state that decided the 2000 race by giving George W. Bush a margin of only 537 votes, the effect could be significant: black voters are overwhelmingly Democratic, while Hispanics in Florida tend to vote Republican.

Elections officials of Florida's Republican administration denied any partisan motive in use of the method they adopted, and noted that it had been approved as part of a settlement of a civil rights lawsuit.

"This was absolutely unintentional," said Nicole de Lara, spokeswoman for the Florida secretary of state, Glenda E. Hood, an appointee of Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother.

Click here for the rest.

Of course, the Bush apointee assures us it's unintentional; that's all according to script. They claimed it was unintentional back in 2000, too, and I guess it's just too damned bad that their little mistake gave their governor's brother the White House. Whatever, I don't buy that it was a mistake back then, and I certainly don't think it's a mistake now. They're trying to steal the election, again, and they may very well get away with it.

Bastards.

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