Governor wants to tighten state's grip on election laws
In a move that would dramatically increase state control of elections, Gov. Jeb Bush and the state elections office will ask the Legislature for greater authority, including the ability to decide which voters should be purged from voting rolls.
The secretary of state, who is appointed by the governor, also would be given strong enforcement powers, including the authority to seek criminal charges and fines up to $5,000 against any of the state's 67 election supervisors — most of whom are elected — who fail to follow the rules.
My G*d, does no one have a memory? Remember how these guys — the Secretary of State and the Governor — used the authority they already have to secretly purge likely Democratic voters from the rolls?
And then they manipulated the 2000 recount, too. And lied about it.
Following the contentious 2000 recount, e-mails on former Sec. of State Katherine Harris’ computer revealed that she had been in contact with Jeb Bush during the recount, contrary to both their claims. Miami Herald reporter Meg Laughlin discovered that e-mail messages sent to Jeb Bush from Harris had been deleted after the recount. Harris then had the operating system of her computer changed, a procedure that erased all its data. Following the contentious 2000 recount, e-mails on former Sec. of State Katherine Harris’ computer revealed that she had been in contact with Jeb Bush during the recount, contrary to both their claims. Miami Herald reporter Meg Laughlin discovered that e-mail messages sent to Jeb Bush from Harris had been deleted after the recount. Harris then had the operating system of her computer changed, a procedure that erased all its data. “What was odd about what she did,” said Mark Seibel, an editor at the Herald, “was that they installed an old operating system—not a new one—which makes you wonder why they did it.”
Gotta give them points for bare-faced cheek, I suppose.
The Republicans are quite single-minded about this sort of thing. Power by any means necessary.
Wow, this is really shameless. It’s as if Katherine Harris and her insane contractors never happened! Of course, given the attention span of the American public, it didn’t.
One wonders why Jeb and company don’t fix this problem in a cost-effective manner, and just allow former felons to vote.
between that simple move, and providing adequate funding to the county elections offices to mail out non-forwardable sample ballots with return postage guaranteed, there would be no problem.