This week’s Smackdown goes to Florida’s continued nefarious efforts to block underprivileged & minority voters in their state.
LA Times: “Florida Vote Ruling Seen As Win for Poor & Minorities“
ACLU: “Legal Victory – Voter Registration“
ColorLines: “Federal Judge Overturns Draconian Voter Registration Rules in Florida“
And, in order to laugh to keep from raging at Florida’s undaunted attempts at voter suppression – reworked, reworded, and redefined from their successful 2000 and 2004 election fraud – Jon Stewart shares clips from John Oliver’s interviews with Florida’s democracy-challenged voting-related lawmakers.
“Purge Overkill – Florida’s Voter Registration Law“
(Minus the pre-video ad: “Purge Overkill – Florida’s Voter Registration Law“)
What’s your take on this issue?
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Sylver Blaque 
A person would have to be very naive to believe that both parties, where they control the election process, do not engage in this sort of chicanery. Whether it’s making it difficult for eligible people to vote – or seeing that people who are ineligible vote anyway.
Years ago in Chicago (which knows a bit about election chicanery-magic), I challenged over 300 voters – for the simple reason that their residences had been demolished. Most reasonable people would accept the fact that if a building no longer existed, it would be hard for a person to live there. The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners made it as hard as possible to file each of these challenges. It took about five minutes to complete one form because the information requested was needlessly repetitive. The forms had to be completed in their office – for reasons of “integrity”.
Once the challenges were filed, a hearing was held after the affected voter was notified by the Board. At this hearing, only two of those who were challenged appeared to argue why they should be allowed to vote. Both of those were denied the right to vote in the next election by the Board. Those who did not appear at the hearing were “struck from the voting rolls”.
At the next election, 282 of these people cast their ballots.
It was my introduction to how corrupt a political system can be – and nothing much has changed in the intervening years.
Wow, this is a compelling bit of voting history. I didn’t know about this, and am now even more curious about just how deeply such “chicanery” runs – and where. Thanks for sharing this, J. You are always a fountain of intriguing historical anecdotes (which is one of many reasons I love your blog).
And as to your point about naiveté, there are hoards of Americans who honestly believe in an unassailable purity of our election process – and no amount of blatant or documented “chicanery” will sway them from their patriotic blind faith. This, I believe, allows such election criminalities to thrive, steadily morphing our democracy into a deadly (for 99 percent of us) plutocracy.
Politics brings my blood pressure to unsafe levels. So, I’m just going to pretend I have enough, while pretending they don’t exist, and carving out my own new reality of which Republicans, and Democrats have no place.
Lol. You go, Dave! 🙂
Always interesting to learn how things work on the other side of the Atlantic! 😮
Speaking of which, come and read my POV on your Presidential election…
On my way over!
Yep – I’ve missed you spirited commentary.
Lol. 🙂 Thank you, Jane!
I love Politics 🙂
Gotta love it! 😉