What's with Florida?

It's sort of like when “W” extended the so called “War on Terror” to Iraq. There were absolutely no Al-Qaeda in Iraq until our misguided invasion inspired their recruitment and drew them there. Now Florida, one of the Republican-held voter suppression states, finally has some real cases of voter fraud to talk about. The fraud is the work of Republican operatives.

I heard of the growing scandal on Saturday while I was making get-out-the-vote calls for MoveOn. I was talking to a MoveOn member from Detroit when he asked what we were going to do about the voter fraud in Florida. I looked up the various posts and, sure enough, Republican operatives were engaged in voter registration fraud. The operative's firm has ties deep within the Republican party and has received $3 million from the RNC over the past two months. The firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, was finally fired by the RNC Thursday. The widespread nature of the fraud (11 counties so far) became apparent late in the week and that's when the story went (more or less) national. Frankly, it's not getting nearly the exposure that it should in the national news media. The New York Times had a short article on September 28, as did the Washington Post.

By far the best coverage is coming from the Brad Friedman's watchdog BRAD BLOG, which broke the story as it started to unveil on Tuesday. From the September 30 BRAD BLOG post: “The strategy [of registering only Romney supporters] resulted in...fraudulent registration forms collected by the firm and then submitted in Florida by the state GOP with voter addresses, signatures and party affiliations changed.... Election officials in the state have told The BRAD BLOG that they fear the scheme could result in the disenfranchisement of a still-unknown number of otherwise legal voters.”

 

So here we go again. In the key swing state of Florida, the poster child for the Republican voter suppression effort and the scene for the infamous “no recount” SCOTUS decision that handed the 2000 election to Bush, Republicans have registered voters fraudulently. In the process, they have possibly disenfranchised many additional legal voters not already disenfranchised by the voter suppression effort. In this state of affairs, the polls showing an Obama lead in Florida mean nothing.

Other Republican tactics to discourage Democratic-leaning voters include closing or changing polling places (a voter in Ohio told me that in his town the number of polling locations was reduced from 15 to 4) and sending operatives to polling places as vote challengers (voters in both Florida and Michigan mentioned this to me). On the latter, there were some encouraging words from a lawyer in Michigan, who said she was going to go to the polls to ensure in Wayne County (Detroit) that voters were not intimidated by what she called “young men with clipboards”. The MoveOn member from Detroit mentioned earlier had a good response too: “I vote in Detroit and those [poll watchers] are not going to dare to intimidate anyone.”

Even if President Obama wins in November, there is a good possibility that Republicans will still control the House and may pick up the Senate. Thanks to the Citizens United decision, Democrats across the board are being outspent many-times-to-one, in these races. Even Kirsten Gillebrand in heavily Democratic New York State appears to be in a tight race. We should never underestimate what money can do to swing the election. Just look at Scott Walker's victory in the Wisconsin governor recall election and at the 2010 Congressional midterm elections. Money wins elections and until Citizens United is overturned, Republicans will have an insurmountable money advantage. Voter turnout (and protection) and message framing are key to overcoming the money advantage. Democrats need to make sure their message is heard. They need to respond to falsely accusing attack ads immediately (please, no more swiftboat “responses”) - before the lies take on a patina of truth in the mind of the American public.

 

After going on about the missed opportunities and disappointments of Obama's first term, Kevin Baker in the October Harper's Magazine, concludes his article “Why Vote?” this way: “So yes, go out and vote. Go vote for Barack Obama, and whatever other Democrats or progressives are running for office where you live. To vote for a Mitt Romney—to vote for the modern right anywhere in the West today—is an act of national suicide. The right is hollow to its core; it has no dreams, no vision, no plans to deal with any of the problems that confront us, only infantile fantasies of violence and consumption. But it is, at the moment, well funded, well organized, and feeling especially threatened. It is capable of anything.”

 

Miscellany – Links to Articles of Interest

 

Wisconsin's anti-union law advanced by Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin State Legilature was struck down as unconstitutional on September 14. Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas struck down the law, which essentially eliminated collective-bargaining rights for most public employees, as a violation of the state and U.S. Constitution. (Politico)

 

Pennsylvania's strict voter ID law remains in limbo although a Pennsylvania judge (to whom the Pennsylvania Supreme Court “punted”) said on Thursday that he may issue an injunction. As the sage Yogi Berra once sid: “It ain't over 'til it's over.” Opponents argue the law could create "a very large problem" for as many as half a million voters in Pennsylvania. They argue that a disproportionate number of those impacted would be racial minorities, the elderly and other vulnerable groups. (CBS News, Sept. 27)

 

Robert Reich's video on the 7 Biggest Economic Lies (MoveOn clip)