Florida announced Wednesday afternoon it would ignore the Department of Justice's demands to stop its controversial voter purge, but a state election supervisor threw another twist into the story, telling MSNBC's Al Sharpton soon afterwards that he and his colleagues won't play along.
Ion Sancho, Leon County's supervisor of elections, told the PoliticsNation host that Republican Gov. Rick Scott can "do all he wants of this partisan endeavor" but that Sancho would not participate in a process he sees as illegal, adding that he spoke for a good number of his fellow supervisors.
The majority of us "will not conduct any illegal activity," Sancho told Sharpton. "We're going to ensure our voters are protected."
Sancho said that the purge would not be successfully executed without the cooperation of supervisors like himself.
"We are the hands, legs, head, feet and eyes of this process," said Sancho. "...I was independently elected by the voters of my county and I work for them."
Scott has come up with a list of 180,000 voters who his administration says are ineligible to cast ballots in the battleground state. But the purge seems to have snared many legitimate voters.The Justice Department last week told the state to stop the effort, saying the purge violated the National Voter Registration Act, which says voter roll maintenance must stop 90 days before an election.
Fellow supervisor, Ann McFall in Volusia County, later told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that she too would not participate in the purge, citing federal law.
"I just hope it isn't some sort of partisan posturing," the Republican said when asked why the purge was happening. "But I'm afraid that's what it's turning out to be."
Florida's Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced Wednesday that the state would defy the Department of Justice's demands, insisting that DoJ's order to stop "hardly seems like an approach designed to protect the integrity of elections and ensure that eligible voters have their votes counted."
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, an advocate of voting rights, blasted Detzner's decision to push the purge.
"The state’s planned purge, so close to the election, opens the door to errors, confusion, and the removal of eligible voters,” said Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program. “The Department of Justice was correct in raising a concern about this process. The Sunshine State cannot continue to operate its election process in darkness.”
Michael Hardy, general counsel for civil rights non-profit National Action Network, told Sharpton the election supervisors' defiance could mean trouble for Scott.
"The governor is going to have a very difficult time pushing this, said Hardy. "The facts of this are not in his favor."
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Good - STOP This Insane GOMER and ALL That Are Like Him !!!! US Americans Deserve to have OUR Rights !!!!
If Ric Scott is so worried about voter fraud maybe we should suggest having the United Nations send voting monitors to every election poll in Fla. You know the way they do for third world countries. That would validate the election. This is ridiculous. The Dept. of Justice needs to file charges against Ric Scott for violations of the Federal Voting Rights Act. The Republicans and The Confederate Tea Party think that they can just do whatever they want regardless of the law.
Every since Citizens United our laws of the land mean nothing. We are a 1%-party government and there will be many more drastic changes in our country's political policies... Our Democratic Party has been bought out. Pelosi is kicking that can just as far and fast as she can. Reed is mumbling to himself as he counts the money he made from the insider information that he received on Wall Street....
OUR BILL OF RIGHTS and CONSTITUTION at both the State and Federal level is being rewritten as you read this...
Listen to the Media...Many states who are in the process of making changes to their Constitutions.
What is ahead ..Michigan is a testing ground for the new governmental policies...An example of 1 person with total control over counties and 100's of thousands of people.
The people can vote, but nobody cares and they do not count as anything more than the citizens wasting their time. Their votes are not even counted in many of the county elections....I can think of several places that this is a regular accurance...IRAN, IRAQ,Pakistan, Egypt, India...
The DOJ could cause Scott trouble in FL...Scott is the flip side of the card that Walker in WI just played and won..
I wonder if I will live long enough to see the out-come of this played out in court..
Or maybe they will leave the problem to our great Supreme Court to decide. The same Supreme Court that gave us Citizens United.
There is to many places that a problem can be kicked over into someone else's lap to be the decision maker.
Decision Maker....Do we have these anymore or have we replaced them with our PC's and Blackberry?????
Bwahahahaha....did you SERIOUSLY say send in the United Nations?!? Bwahahaha....you Libtards are even more delusional since the Wisconsin beatdown.
BTW, your usual Democrat voter fraud won't help Obumbles THIS time....the margin of victory in November will be far beyond the grasp of your usual dead/illegal/multiple voting tactics......Democrats are nothing but lazy traitors...
Let's all keep in mind that G.W.Bush's margins were small, and in Fla 200, microscopic. Nobody is predicting anything other than a close election this year.
What we Democrats want is an intelligent responsible opposition to have a reasonable discussion with us.
BTW, "Reverend" Al Sharpton is a criminal....who in the HELL would consort with the likes of him? Apparently Democrat election officials in Florida....
I can't imagine what Governor Scott is thinking. Preventing criminals and dead people from voting is going make it nearly impossible to reelect Obama, or for that matter virtually any liberal democrat. Shame on him! . . . right?
Darn right Ion Sanchez is an elected official. I live in Leon County and I can't wait to vote for his re-election! Thank you Mr. Sanchez!
Election officials who knowingly allow their constituents votes to be diluted with fraudulent votes should be prosecuted and imprisoned.
"The governor is going to have a very difficult time pushing this, said Hardy. "The facts of this are not in his favor."
What is right is right and not letting the vote be diluted with fraudulent voting is right and that is all in Scott's corner.