The hypocrisy burns. I just watched a report by Michael Isikoff on NewsNation with Tamaron Hall, about fake letters being received by Florida Voters where Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner said on screen:
This is an attempt to intimidate voters in one of the most important states in the United States in a national election.
The news report was about phony letters being received by Florida voters, but I don't see anybody talking about the irony that these letters mimic the official letters that were sent out to Florida voters earlier this year challenging their right to vote. The Florida noncitizen voter purge started small:
Florida’s latest elections controversy began in the smallest of ways: a five-minute chat a year ago between Gov. Rick Scott and his top election official.
At the time, about February 2011, the newly elected governor was touring the office run by then-Secretary of State Kurt Browning, who put on a presentation about Florida’s voting rolls and elections issues for the political newcomer.
That’s when Scott — a Republican who campaigned as an immigration hardliner — asked a simple question: How do we know everyone on the rolls is a U.S. citizen?
How Rick Scott’s noncitizen voter purge started small and then blew up
Browning left office early in 2012 and was replaced by Ken Detzner. The program to identify and purge noncitizens from Florida's voter rolls went forward in a big way producing "three federal lawsuits, widespread suspicion and bitter partisanship, echoing the recriminations of Florida’s controversial 2000 elections that still haunt the state today." The attempts this summer produced stories of citizens who were outraged at having received letters questioning their citizenship like 91-year-old Veteran Bill Internicola.
Internicola received a letter in May from the Broward Supervisor of Elections stating that it received "information from the State of Florida that you are not a United States citizen; however you are registered to vote." The letter was part of a controversial state-led effort to rid the voter rolls of noncitizens. Similar letters were sent to 259 Broward voters.
Internicola said he was “flabbergasted” by the suggestion that he wasn’t a citizen. He called the county’s election office and said: "Are you crazy?"
South Florida Democrats say Gov. Rick Scott leading “misguided” effort to purge voters from state rolls
Yes it is wrong that some unknown entity is mailing fake letters to registered voters in Florida. Most of those receiving the fake letters seem to be Republicans. I just wonder where the perpetrators got the idea in the first place. How can Ken Detzner express outrage over this when he was responsible for county election officials sending hundreds of similar official letters to actual U.S. citizens in Florida this summer that targeted demographics that just happened to be mostly African American, Hispanic and others her mostly vote for Democrats? Does he really believe that the source of the letter being received by an actual citizen makes a difference? The man who questioned the citizenship of so many voters in Florida in his official capacity as the Secretary of State is not the person to be expressing outrage about this issue.
Direct
link to video for those who can't watch embedded videos on iPad or other devices.
Tamaron Hall: Eleven days; eleven days, but the FBI is already investigating alleged voter fraud and intimidation in key states. Meantime watchdog groups are worried about what they call a surge of quote dirty tricks. NBC news national investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff has details.
Michael Isikoff: The official looking letters are showing up across Florida, challenging voters' citizenship and their right to vote. Those getting them are outraged.
Man #1: I went ballistic when i read it.
Man #2: Basically they were saying they were questioning my citizenship and were implying that they were going to eliminate me from being able to vote.
Michael Isikoff: The fake letters which threaten nonregistered Florida voters with arrests and imprisonment were post marked in Seattle. Up to 100 had been reported in 28 Florida counties. The FBI is trying to track down the perpetrators. Florida officials are alarmed.
Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner: This is an attempt to intimidate voters in one of the most important states in the United States in a national election.
Michael Isikoff: Members of both parties and independents have received the phony letters although a majority have seem to have gone to Republicans even 2001 the state GOP chairman. Watchdog groups say it's one of many dirty tricks popping up aimed at voter suppression.
Eric Marshall, Election Protection Coalition: We've seen earlier in the election cycle than previous years these nefarious, underhanded tactics by shadowy groups to restrict the ability of responsible Americans to vote.
Michael Isikoff: The dirty tricks include billboards in minority neighborhoods in Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania warning that vote fraud is a felony. Put up by an unnamed private family foundation they are now coming down after a public outcry. In Arizona some Hispanic voters received official notice, listing the election as November 8th, two days after Election Day. Just this week a conservative activist group caught the son of Virginia Democratic Congressman Jim Moran in an undercover video sting seeming to go along with a plan to cast fraudulent ballots.
Patrick Moran: But it has to be like a utility bill or something like that. So you have to; so you have to forge it.
Michael Isikoff: Moran's son says he was only trying to humor the person that approached him but quit his father's campaign and local police are investigating. Meanwhile Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is investigating a Republican operative arrested for throwing voter registration forms in a dumpster. The operative Colin Small who couldn't be reached for comment had previously worked for Strategic Allied Consulting, a consulting firm fired by the Republican National Committee last month after employees turned in hundreds of suspicious registration forms in Florida, including some with fake addresses like a Shell gas station. At the time the head of the firm Nathan Sproul told NBC News he was the victim of a few bad apples who work for him.