Aug 29, 2012

This Is What Voter Suppression Looks Like – VIDEO

Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews discuss the rapid decrease of Democratic voting registration in Florida and discuss the voter suppression in the state. Please click here to watch the video.

Following up on this at The Maddow Blog:

…Republicans in Florida set out to make registering voters harder for this election. The new rules took effect last year, and the results are clear. Republicans are still reaching and registering new voters, if not quite as many. Democrats, as you can see on the chart (below), are scarcely registering new voters at all.

In May, a federal court blocked enforcement of the law. The Florida Times-Union reports that June and July posted the highest numbers of new voters all year.

Has Rick Scott gotten away with disenfranchising poor people of all races, and people of color– who’ve historically had to do battle with laws preventing them from voting; as well as senior citizens and college students. Then, there are groups like newly-married couples, or newly-divorced ones, the transgendered community, Native Americans, American citizens with immigrant family members, and, to add insult to injury……those who may have recently lost their homes due to the foreclosure crisis?

Hey, you there in Florida, your voting apathy in 2010 is why you (and the rest of America) are stuck with Rick Scott in the first place.

This is much bigger than one presidential election. This is about the future of our democracy. Please, register to vote. Then be ready to either fill in and mail your absentee ballots—give them a week or two to be delivered–or get in line on November 6.