: Use of State Police to intimidate blacks not to register in FLA

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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Dave Farber  +1 412 726 9889



...... Forwarded Message .......
From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 10:25:09 -0700
Subj: NYTimes: Use of State Police to intimidate blacks not to register in 
FLA

A Chill in Florida
By BOB HERBERT
August 23, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST 
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/23/opinion/23herbert.html

The state police investigation into get-out-the-vote activities by blacks in
Orlando, Fla., fits perfectly with the political aims of Gov. Jeb Bush and
the Republican Party.

The Republicans were stung in the 2000 presidential election when Al Gore
became the first Democrat since 1948 to carry Orange County, of which
Orlando is the hub. He could not have carried the county without the strong
support of black voters, many of whom cast absentee ballots.

The G.O.P. was stung again in 2003 when Buddy Dyer, a Democrat, was elected
mayor of Orlando. He won a special election to succeed Glenda Hood, a
three-term Republican who was appointed Florida secretary of state by
Governor Bush. Mr. Dyer was re-elected last March. As with Mr. Gore, the
black vote was an important factor.

These two election reverses have upset Republicans in Orange County and
statewide. Moreover, the anxiety over Democratic gains in Orange County is
entwined with the very real fear among party stalwarts that Florida might go
for John Kerry in this year's presidential election.

It is in this context that two of the ugliest developments of the current
campaign season should be viewed.

"A Democrat can't win a statewide election in Florida without a high voter
turnout - both at the polls and with absentee ballots - of
African-Americans," said a man who is close to the Republican establishment
in Florida but asked not to be identified. "It's no secret that the name of
the game for Republicans is to restrain that turnout as much as possible.
Black votes are Democratic votes, and there are a lot of them in Florida."

The two ugly developments - both focused on race - were the heavy-handed
investigation by Florida state troopers of black get-out-the-vote efforts in
Orlando, and the state's blatant attempt to purge blacks from voter rolls
through the use of a flawed list of supposed felons that contained the names
of thousands of African-Americans and, conveniently, very few Hispanics.

Florida is one of only a handful of states that bar convicted felons from
voting, unless they successfully petition to have their voting rights
restored. The state's "felon purge" list had to be abandoned by Glenda Hood,
the secretary of state (and, yes, former mayor of Orlando), after it became
known that the flawed list would target blacks but not Hispanics, who are
more likely in Florida to vote Republican. The list also contained the names
of thousands of people, most of them black, who should not have been on the
list at all.

Ms. Hood, handpicked by Governor Bush to succeed the notorious Katherine
Harris as secretary of state, was forced to admit that the felons list was a
mess. She said the problems were unintentional. What clearly was intentional
was the desire of Ms. Hood and Governor Bush to keep the list secret. It was
disclosed only as a result of lawsuits filed under Florida's admirable
sunshine law.

Meanwhile, the sending of state troopers into the homes of elderly black
voters in Orlando was said by officials to be a response to allegations of
voter fraud in last March's mayoral election. But the investigation went
forward despite findings in the spring that appeared to show that the
allegations were unfounded.

Why go forward anyway? Well, consider that the prolonged investigation
dovetails exquisitely with that crucial but unspoken mission of the G.O.P.
in Florida: to keep black voter turnout as low as possible. The
interrogation of elderly black men and women in their homes has already
frightened many voters and intimidated elderly get-out-the-vote volunteers.

The use of state troopers to zero in on voter turnout efforts is highly
unusual, if not unprecedented, in Florida. But the head of the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement, Guy Tunnell, who was also handpicked by
Governor Bush, has been unfazed by the mounting criticism of this use of the
state police. His spokesmen have said a "person of interest" in the
investigation is Ezzie Thomas, a 73-year-old black man who just happens to
have done very well in turning out the African-American vote.

> From the G.O.P. perspective, it doesn't really matter whether anyone is
arrested in the Orlando investigation, or even if a crime was committed. The
idea, in Orange County and elsewhere, is to send a chill through the
democratic process, suppressing opposing votes by whatever means are
available.


--
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
Voice: 408-882-4755 eFax: +1-408-490-2868
http://www.ibd.com



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