Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 10:14 pm
As a caring progressive, I just have to wade in with the latest update on the Florida voting fiasco.
Most of the Florida (read Governor Rick Scott) voter repression facts and figures you’re reading about here come from the Miami Herald Online Edition. And they ain’t pretty. In fact they’re disgusting and, as I’ve written earlier, Scott should be held accountable. Let us begin.
The Tuesday vote count won’t be completed until Thursday. When we know the final results is anybody’s guess. Some say Saturday is a good bet. Not only is the count two days late, but that also adds two additional days to figure out how to twist the vote in the Republican’s favor. Am I suggesting that’s a possibility? Does Romney avoid paying taxes? The Miami-Dade County Elections Supervisor, has already admitted that “mistakes have been made in the elections process”, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
There are 20,000 ballots to be counted representing 100,000 pages that all have to be verified one by one. In some voting venues, ballots were 10 and 12 pages long. These lengthy time-eaters are all highly intentional of course with many measures added simply to guarantee very slow-moving lines. Can anything be harsher to the dedicated and sincere voter than waiting in line as long as EIGHT hours? As in Miami-Dade, the last Monroe County voter cast a ballot at 1 AM as Scott refused to extend voting hours to another day and even cut 2 hours off of Sunday voting even as voters were waiting in line.
The hope of the Republican Party leadership was, of course, that people would see the lines and either tire out and leave or refuse to join the lines in the first place. And I dare say, most of those people were in the targeted minority districts. To a degree, it worked. Michelle Obama was once given right-wing hell for saying in February of 2008 that “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.” Well, you can give me hell for saying I’m deeply ashamed of certain parts of my country. You’re not Americans. I don’t know what you are, maybe you’ll carry out your threats to move to Canada, but more appropriately, since you’re leaving anyway, I’d start looking at certain totalitarian dictatorships for residence because that’s clearly where you belong.
In the two most recent Florida General Elections, both Scott predecessors, Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist, extended voting hours. 2012 is all on Scott.
Question for you holier than thou, right-wing bible-thumpers. Have you no conscience whatsoever? Is your hatred for a brilliant and accomplished black man so deeply ingrained in your twisted psyches, that you’ll stoop to anything to keep the man out of the White House? Do you think the good lord is looking down on you and pumping a fist of approval? You really couldn’t be any less Christian.
Sorry thumpers, but in votes that have been counted in Miami-Dade, Obama kicks Romney’s ass by about 25 percentage points according to the Herald. President Obama is fond of using the term ‘math’, so let’s do the math. 20,000 absentee ballots remain to be counted. Obama has a 203,947 vote lead as I write this. So Miami-Dade goes to Obama in a big way, even if every last absentee vote goes to the tax-avoider. Statewide, Obama already leads by 46,000 votes so the only thing at stake here is a recount after a certain Obama win. And there are enough Obama-hating election heads and workers to virtually guarantee a recount would be in the offing if the margin calls for it. That is unless Romney did the one honorable thing of a dishonorable campaign and declined to demand it.
Even if Florida manages to massage the numbers for Romney, it’s a moot point. The total number of Electors in the U.S. is 538. That number represents 2 Senators per state plus the sum total of their House of Representative’s members. Florida has 29 Electors. Who cares? Obama already has the 270 required majority in his pocket. He’s going to be a two-term president. Hallelujah!
Once all the votes from all the precincts from all the polling places are counted and booked, here’s something that Florida Democratic leaders should think long and hard about. Read the Fourteenth Amendment. Read Section 2 of XIV that directly applies to the voting obscenity that is Florida. It’s dated, but certainly deserving of a court ruling. If that court hands down the decision I think is most obvious, it could result in the reduction of House members for the state and I think that should happen. The ACLU might also want to mine certain segments of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I say keep the pressure on these vote deniers and attack every repressive Voter ID act in every state that has passed that grotesque legislation.
The Democrats have won the right to get on the offensive. We don’t need to stand by and watch our country disintegrate. But we do have to get up off our couches. Let’s give ourselves a grace period of the rest of the year, then hit the ground-game running. Every Democratic voter, every election. Get ’em out to vote and if the Voter ID laws stand, break out chairs and food and liquids for those in line. Keep them company if you’ve already voted.
Let’s party!
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