Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and the Justice Department will sue Florida to stop the voter purge. (Photo from USDA.)
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
Within a few days, Gov. Rick Scott’s effort to remove noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls has racked up an impressive number of lawsuits.
On June 1, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida filed a lawsuit in federal court against the state over the purge. The group claimed state officials were removing voters from the rolls unlawfully close to the upcoming election and were unfairly targeting minorities.
Fast forward a few days to yesterday: Scott announced he was suing the Department of Homeland Security for refusing to turn over names of noncitizens to further remove from the rolls. That same day, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state for defying its request to end the purge.
Yet again, Florida is going to be paying for a slew of legal challenges — all likely to shake out very close to a presidential election.
The Palm Beach Post reported:
The Department of Justice will sue Gov. Rick Scott’s administration over a controversial non-citizen voter purge, the federal agency told Scott’s administration the same day the governor filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez ordered Secretary of State Ken Detzner to “immediately cease this unlawful conduct,” blaming Scott’s administration for the problematic purge.
“Because the State has indicated its unwillingness to comply with these requirements, I have authorized the initiation of an enforcement action against Florida in federal court.”
Perez’s five-page letter came in response to a missive from Detzner last week accusing President Obama’s administration of conspiring to keep Florida from cleansing its voter rolls. Perez flatly denied it.
“In short, your claim that the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security have worked in concert to deny Florida access to the SAVE Program is simply wrong,” he wrote.
Scott’s effort has been fraught with scandal since it was first announced, but Scott and his administration have insisted the federal government is wrong.
A month ago is when the first rumblings of a problem with the purge began. According to an early analysis by The Miami Herald of the purge list, “Hispanic, Democratic and independent-minded voters” were more likely to be targeted.
Furthermore, the local election supervisors tasked with removing the voting rights from these individuals found several errors with the list and began to question the accuracy of the information the state was handing down to them.
Local election officials from around the state eventually backed off from the purge entirely.
PBS Frontline reported:
But upon examining the list, election supervisors found names of U.S. citizens, according to Vicki Davis, the elected president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections. “We had been told this list was a really clean list with which to work,” Davis, who is also a Republican, said.
Based on the letter and supervisors’ own concerns, a lawyer for the association recommended last week that local election officials halt the purge. “They know they need to discontinue working the list,” Davis said.
Among the concerns the Justice Department raised: A federal registration law prohibits states from altering the voter rolls 90 days before a federal election. Florida is holding a primary on Aug. 14, so the changes began within the restricted time frame, the Justice Department said.
Ann McFall, the Republican election supervisor for Volusia County, said the voter rolls were already carefully purged in 2011, well before the election. “Then this late-breaking, non-emergency, non-citizen issue has come before us within the 90-day time period. It just didn’t pass the smell test,” she said. She added, “I think I’d be breaking the law if I continued the purge.”
Why another purge now? “It’s close,” McFall said, referring to the upcoming presidential election. “It’s not that there’s fraud there. It’s not that mistakes happen. It’s just that it’s so close.”
Former Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning told the Associated Press this was a project launched by Scott himself. So far, the purge has had few vocal supporters beside Scott. In turn, the purge has even begun to contribute to lower approval numbers for him.
However, Scott continues to fight the feds. He told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto yesterday that he is fighting for access to the Homeland Security database of noncitizens. He said Florida has the right to use it for voter registration purposes and the federal government was out of line for denying the state access.
Regardless of who is right, though, the state is going to be spending a considerable amount of time and money fighting in court over this — even though the state has already spent a considerable amount of time and money pushing the limits of the law.