Monday, July 19, 2004
Outrage-Felon List
From Billmon:
The state had tried to keep the list a secret. It fought a lawsuit aimed at opening the records to the public. A series of errors emerged once a Tallahassee judge rejected the state's arguments and released the records on July 1. The error that proved final — and garnered national attention — was that Hispanics were largely overlooked because of glitches ["glitches" would be more appropriate] in how the state records information about race and ethnicity. The list was created by cross-checking voter registration and criminal records. Of the more than 47,000 voters on the potential felon list, Hispanics made up one tenth of 1 percent — this in a state where nearly 1 in 5 residents is Hispanic. Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood issued a written statement Saturday saying the exclusion of Hispanics was "unintentional and unforeseen." "We are deeply concerned and disappointed that this has occurred," Hood said. . . . Many Hispanic voters vote Republican, with the Cuban population votes overwhelmingly Republican. And I suspect that's why only 50 — yes, 50 — Latinos were on a list of 47,000 names.
This is the article Billmon references.
It gets even better. Jeb Bush found himself facing some trouble, and despite previous protestations that the process was clean, wouldn't you know it? They found a glitch. Apparently the names of the Hispanic felons were kept on a separate list, for unknown reasons of course, and they forgot to merge it with the Guys Who Are Most Likely To Vote For Kerry list. So Jeb decided to punt on the whole deal.
I'm sorry, i'm sorry, that we got CAUGHT!! Is what Jeb meant to say.
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The state had tried to keep the list a secret. It fought a lawsuit aimed at opening the records to the public. A series of errors emerged once a Tallahassee judge rejected the state's arguments and released the records on July 1. The error that proved final — and garnered national attention — was that Hispanics were largely overlooked because of glitches ["glitches" would be more appropriate] in how the state records information about race and ethnicity. The list was created by cross-checking voter registration and criminal records. Of the more than 47,000 voters on the potential felon list, Hispanics made up one tenth of 1 percent — this in a state where nearly 1 in 5 residents is Hispanic. Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood issued a written statement Saturday saying the exclusion of Hispanics was "unintentional and unforeseen." "We are deeply concerned and disappointed that this has occurred," Hood said. . . . Many Hispanic voters vote Republican, with the Cuban population votes overwhelmingly Republican. And I suspect that's why only 50 — yes, 50 — Latinos were on a list of 47,000 names.
This is the article Billmon references.
It gets even better. Jeb Bush found himself facing some trouble, and despite previous protestations that the process was clean, wouldn't you know it? They found a glitch. Apparently the names of the Hispanic felons were kept on a separate list, for unknown reasons of course, and they forgot to merge it with the Guys Who Are Most Likely To Vote For Kerry list. So Jeb decided to punt on the whole deal.
I'm sorry, i'm sorry, that we got CAUGHT!! Is what Jeb meant to say.
