You Know What They Say About Florida...

For those not familiar with the carnival atmosphere that characterizes the state of Florida's Republican dominated government, allow me to introduce the concept of the "voter purge." Rick Scott recently attempted to deny thousands of eligible voters the right to vote in the upcoming presidential election. Some might recall this strategy utilized under Kathrine Harris, the infamous former Secretary of State of Florida. She was the elected official who chose to void thousands of vote's, including those of military personal serving in war, which would later be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court during the 2001 Presidential election. Governor Scott decided to compile a list of 180,000 voters, all recent immigrants to the United States in order to regulate anyone voting illegally. His first attempt to compare the list with the Department of Homeland Security was rebuffed, naturally for its politically insensitive intentions. His last resort was to compare the list with the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles. Utilizing the D.M.V., he was able to invalidate thousands of Americans who were not required to inform the department of their recent status as United States citizens. It is no coincidence that millions of newly immigrated United States citizens and their children born in this nation, fear the Republican and Tea Party's vehement anti-immigration rhetoric. This tactic of "purge-ing" is fully endorsed by the both the Republican and Tea Party, as the two have unrolled similar measures in the electoral swing states of New Mexico and Colorado.

The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's School of Law, along with the A.C.L.U., the N.A.A.C.P. and hundreds of other social justice organizations are fighting against these conservative tactics. In Florida, some of the most extreme of the recently enacted Voter Restriction Laws have already been placed on the books. The new valid state issued I.D. requirement will make it extremely difficult for students without a State issued I.D. to vote. Students who attend school out of state and need that states drivers license in order to live, will be forced to undergo the expensive process of receiving a new license for a change to state. Some might even be forced to misrepresent an address in order to vote in time, an absolute form of voter fraud. To label this a conspiracy theory would be to utilize the same form of "mystification" that conservatives utilizes in claiming any form of voter fraud epidemic. In fact, other than striking fear in the hearts of their voting base through homosexual recruitment theories, nothing riles up conservative America more the idea of Democrats stuffing the ballot boxes. The sad truth is that voter fraud at an individual level is almost non existent. The states that have been assessed for the violation find the incident to roughly occur 0.0002% of the time. It is funny because the typical orthodox conservative rhetoric lambasts President Obama for supporting gay marriage during a time when more "pressing matters must be attended to." I suppose this 0.0002% epidemic, is what they are eluding towards.