Florida Voter Purge Returns With Smaller List
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – The Florida voter purge list rose like a phoenix from the ashes Wednesday when Governor Rick Scott's elections department sent a new list of 198 people who it believes are ineligible to vote.
According to CBS4 news partner the Miami Herald, the list was sent to county elections supervisors who have just 41 days before the November general election. According to the Herald, Republicans are least likely to be identified as noncitizens while Hispanics are more likely than whites or African-Americans to be tagged.
The new lists come with a stack of documentation that has been compared to a federal citizenship database the state recently received access to through an agreement with the Obama administration.
Democratic groups have hammered the voter purge as a way to engineer an election victory for Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Republicans counter they are simply following the letter of the law.
The purge has been targeted by multiple lawsuits, but has yet to be completely stopped. However, the original list of thousands of voters is now down to less than 200.
The Secretary of State's office said the information on the lists doesn't mean the county has to immediately remove the person from the voter roll, according to the Herald. Instead, the information should be used by the county to investigate the people on the list.
The Herald reported that state law dictates that county elections supervisors will send a certified letter to anyone flagged as a noncitizen. The person then has to show proof of citizenship in 30 days. If no action is taken by the voter within 30 days, they can be removed from the voter rolls.
