Fla. Republican: We wanted to suppress black votes

Robotech Master · Jul 29, 2012

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/27/fla_republican_we_suppressed_black_votes/

Florida's disgraced former GOP chairman says the party had meetings about "keeping blacks from voting"

In the debate over new laws meant to curb voter fraud in places like Florida, Democrats always charge that Republicans are trying to suppress the vote of liberal voting blocs like blacks and young people, while Republicans just laugh at such ludicrous and offensive accusations. That is, every Republican except for Florida’s former Republican Party chairman Jim Greer, who, scorned by his party and in deep legal trouble, blew the lid off what he claims was a systemic effort to suppress the black vote. In a 630-page deposition recorded over two days in late May, Greer, who is on trial for corruption charges, unloaded a litany of charges against the “whack-a-do, right-wing crazies” in his party, including the effort to suppress the black vote.

In the deposition, released to the press yesterday, Greer mentioned a December 2009 meeting with party officials. “I was upset because the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting,” he said, according to the Tampa Bay Times. He also said party officials discussed how “minority outreach programs were not fit for the Republican Party,” according to the AP.

The comments, if true (he is facing felony corruption charges and has an interest in scorning his party), would confirm what critics have long suspected. Florida Gov. Rick Scott is currently facing inquiries from the Justice Department and pressure from civil rights groups over his purging of voter rolls in the state, an effort that critics say has disproportionately targeted minorities and other Democratic voters. One group suing the state claims up to 87 percent of the voters purged from the rolls so far have been people of color, though other estimates place that number far lower. Scott has defended the purge, even though he was erroneously listed as dead himself on the rolls in 2006.

As Vanity Fair noted in a big 2004 story on the Sunshine State’s voting problems, “Florida is a state with a history of disenfranchising blacks.” In the state’s notoriously botched 2000 election, the state sent a list of 50,000 alleged ex-felons to the counties, instructing them to purge those names from their rolls. But it turned out that list included 20,000 innocent people, 54 percent of whom were black, the magazine reported. Just 15 percent of the state’s population is black. There were also reports that polling stations in black neighborhoods were understaffed, leading to long lines that kept some people from voting that year. The NAACP and ACLU sued the state over that purge. A Gallup poll in December of 2000 found that 68 percent of African-Americans nationally felt black voters were less likely to have their votes counted fairly in Florida.

Former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, who has since become an independent and is rumored to be considering his next run as a Democrat, wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post recently slamming Scott’s current purge. “Including as many Americans as possible in our electoral process is the spirit of our country. It is why we have expanded rights to women and minorities but never legislated them away, and why we have lowered the voting age but never raised it. Cynical efforts at voter suppression are driven by an un-American desire to exclude as many people and silence as many voices as possible,” he wrote. A recent study from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School found that voter ID laws disproportionately affect poor, minority and elderly voters.
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Hmm. Interesting, if true.

MikeH92467 · Jul 29, 2012

It's obvious.

garamet · Jul 29, 2012

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania...

Delco election official vows to defy ID law
July 26, 2012|By Mari A. Schaefer and Julie Zauzmer

Even as the fate of Pennsylvania's new voter-identification law plays out in a Harrisburg courtroom, an election official in Delaware County is vowing not to enforce it.

Christopher L. Broach, a Democratic inspector of elections in the tiny borough of Colwyn, said he would not ask voters to prove who they are on Election Day.

"To ask me to enforce something that violates civil rights is ludicrous and absolutely something I am not willing to do," Broach said Thursday in an interview.

An IT consultant, Broach was elected inspector of elections but has recently acted as judge of elections to fill a vacancy. He called the law a ploy by the Republican-controlled legislature, "a wholly unethical decision that violated civil rights for the sake of getting Mitt Romney elected."

Though Broach is the only official publicly taking such a stance, Philadelphia's nonpartisan Committee of Seventy received a call from a Pittsburgh poll worker saying he, too, plans not to demand photo ID from voters he knows. The law has set off defiant talk among voters as well, with a few vowing to vote without the required forms of photo ID.

"If I get turned away from the polling place," said Democrat Jean Yetter, 65, of East Stroudsburg, "I will never vote again."

The talk isn't all from Democrats. In Radnor Township, Jane Golas, a Republican inspector of elections, said she wondered how she could ask anyone for identification when she will have to count ballots of absentee voters who are not held to the same standards.

"This is a move by people to suppress the vote in the city of Philadelphia," Golas said. "We never had an issue with people coming in to fraudulently vote."

Marcel L. Groen, the longtime leader of Montgomery County Democrats, said in an e-mail, "I have heard from some voters that they will not provide ID when requested. It is not widespread at this point.

"More importantly, a number of election officials indicated that in the primary, many people were upset about showing ID. Then, it was only optional. There are concerns about long lines and frayed tempers."
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mlong · Jul 29, 2012

The guys facing jail time and is mad that the GOP won't help him...yea he's completely believable.

Fisherman's Worf · Jul 29, 2012

While the true intent behind voter ID laws is obvious, we should tread carefully, because as this article points out:

The comments, if true (he is facing felony corruption charges and has an interest in scorning his party),
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Tuttle · Jul 29, 2012

... a December 2009 meeting with party officials. “I was upset because the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting,” he said
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Greer was upset by it. Clearly Greer's a man of character, he must've just lacked the spine to speak out at the time to reveal the outrageous conduct.

Glad he finally found some confidence to speak out for what is right, he's a real hero, should be feted by everyone who counts: the poor, unfortunate, disabled, government, elite and the bottom-half of earners (ya know, the worthies, not the scum of course, who cares what they think anyways?).

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Fla. Republican: We wanted to suppress black votes

Robotech Master '

MikeH92467 RadioNinja

garamet "The whole world is watching."

mlong Poking that old Liberal Bear

Fisherman's Worf I am the Seaman, I am the Walrus, Qu-Qu-Qapla'!

Tuttle Listen kid, we're all in it together.

Log in or Sign up

Fla. Republican: We wanted to suppress black votes

Robotech Master '

MikeH92467 RadioNinja

garamet "The whole world is watching."

mlong Poking that old Liberal Bear

Fisherman's Worf I am the Seaman, I am the Walrus, Qu-Qu-Qapla'!

Tuttle Listen kid, we're all in it together.

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