In reviewing a Grading PolitiFact review of a PolitiFact Florida ruling on a statement by the ACLU of Florida on the amount of voter fraud in Florida versus the number of shark attacks, I let it go and didn't publish a response because the only reason I could find to oppose their argument—although it was a good one—was the ideological “it’s always best to expand democratic participation.”
But a recent youtube video from “Liberal Viewer Presents” (see below) and a follow-up post from Grading PolitiFact made me realize that Grading PolitFact’s basis for saying this Mostly True ruling was in the “wrong” and should be “False” was a, pardon the pun, felonious one, and did something it often accuses others of, that is, it built a “felons voting” straw man around the voter fraud (in this case, third party voter registrations).
I would have argued originally that in some states felons can vote once they have served their time—their debt to society has been paid, so to speak, so why should they be banned from voting. It sort of shows the absolutest, unforgiving, punishing bent of some Republicans. I might also have taken it right to the end of the slippery slope with the reductio ad absurdum “death panel” argument as well: if you’re not going to allow felons and those without ID to vote, why don’t you just restrict voting to property holders….just like our founding fathers considered doing.
But the “democracy” argument is not the right one for this case. That’s because Grading PolitiFact cannot add these felons to the count as voter fraud to compare to shark attacks. The reason it cannot add them is because the new law does not prevent felons from voting. A person’s driver license does not indicate if they are a felon. Often the police can only see that a person’s drivers’ license is legitimate and hasn’t expired along with traffic charges, and the only way to know whether the driver is a felon is to have police access and be able to look at the person’s arrest record. One can possibly have a felony conviction with traffic charges from being at fault in a deadly traffic accident, but there are many more felonies outside of that. In some cases the police access is restricted (there has to be “cause”): Is it a “cause” to check every person’s driver license for a felony when they vote? In the case of the teacher helping her students register to vote, I’d say the felon question applies in the same way. When filling out the application you must confirm that you are not a felon without “civil rights restored.” The article in the Tampa Bay Times as well as the PolitiFact ruling was not about felons found voting; it was about the rules for third party voter registrations.
It should be noted that Florida’s assistant attorney general called the subject teacher in the article (doing the "third party registrations") and made her an offer to “settle out of court” which means it was not being treated quite like an “illegality.”
Bondi has not yet taken action. But on Monday, while Quarles was in her classroom, she got a phone call from an assistant attorney general, Blaine Winship."He said, 'We'd like to negotiate a settlement out of court,' " Quarles said. "I said, 'I didn't know we were going to court.' "She has received nothing in writing from the state — no citation, nothing, she said. She has asked her state senator, Greg Evers, for help.
The purpose of presenting a drivers’ license or photo ID when you vote is to prove you are the person who is on the voter roll. It’s not about checking the ID to see if you have any felony convictions. Here is a "Liberal Viewer's" recent youtube video that explains (and shows how Fox News distorts voter fraud issues similarly to Grading PolitiFact as well!):
Grading PolitiFact claims the question being asked is “Is voter fraud a problem?” If there was something in the Florida law about checking the arrest background on all voters’ IDs aside from identification verification, I might agree. In other words, if felons voting was a problem, the law should have addressed it, which it appears it did not.
The cases of voter fraud being compared to shark attacks were actual cases being prosecuted by the state in the context of what the new law was trying to prevent. That was why “felons voting” was never mentioned in the ruling; it’s like a non-sequitor. I would also ask concerning the investigation into such voter fraud by the Miami Herald which Grading PolitiFact refers to, if it went back and confirmed with those 445 voters as to whether their “civil rights were restored” or if they carried their right to vote from a felons-may-vote state. These two factors alone weakens the argument that these may have all been illegal votes, since we don’t know.
It could also be argued, as PolitiFact Florida Editor Angie Drobnic Holan published later in a “Mailbag” segment, that voting and voting registration are conflated:
"The shark attack article is absurd. I'm sorry, I lived through the Miami voter fraud scandal in the mid-1990s and watched as supervisors ability to routinely clean voter rolls was eliminated .... Who knows how many voters on our rolls are now dead, illegal or have moved to new locations? Certainly not our election officials because of laws meant to enhance participation. There must be balance. Requiring a picture ID to vote is neither burdensome nor threatening. Voter fraud is real, and each vote cast that should not be, either by an illegal or ineligible voter, negates the votes of legitimate voters. I'm a big fan of enhanced participation … but comparing voter fraud and registration fraud, which happens and is rarely caught, with shark attacks, which are relatively rare and receive massive attention anytime they occur, is just silly."
As for the complaint from writer Bryan White who says the ACLU wants to minimize voter fraud, it’s clear he wants to maximize it. I should note I have a family member who is an ex-felon, and he says he votes; but it might be okay by writer Bryan White since he mostly votes Republican. I'm sure he'd be for "expanding democratic participation" and would ignore the "illegality" if most of them voted Republican.
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