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New details this morning on an effort by Florida Governor Rick Scott to remove certain people
from voting.
Purge. Purge. Purge. Purge.
Another purge of the voting rolls in his state. He tried the same thing last year.
Disproportionately it was Democratic voters that were affected in the last purge.
They started with 182,000 names and they wound up with only 40 people who actually had voted
illegally.
Right. And they only prosecuted one person.
Purging legitimate voters is a problem. But also, it slows down the lines for the rest
of us when poll workers can't find the name of someone. And you'll remember in 2012, Florida
had the longest lines in the country.
Governor Rick Scott's decision to reduce early voting days in Florida led to long lines.
Early voting worked four years ago. More people came out to vote, it was more convenient,
the lines weren't so long, and what did we do? We scrapped it.
Ensuring the integrity of the voting rolls may not be the Governor's only motivation
here. After all, he's trying to hold on to the Governor's mansion.
When we asked the Governor whether not extending early voting was some sort of political move,
he wouldn't say yes or no.
Frankly, Governor Rick Scott should be ashamed of him cutting those early voting days, and
also him barring voting on Sunday. That clearly was targeting African American churches and
others who turned out in massive numbers on Sunday.
We had a Governor who, despite people pleading that he extend early voting in the last election,
wouldn't do it.
Long lines do not meet the definition of an extension. I think the Governor did the exact
thing that he should have done and followed the law.
There's a lot of, frankly, suspicion about your motives when it comes to this and, given
the track record, doubt that it's going to be very fair.