tom_thinks

I sent this letter out today to the Gainesville Sun and some politicians

Demand an Investigation

In this country we pride ourselves on being a democracy. Yet right here in the beautiful state of Florida, our Governor and Secretary of State have done incredible damage to our sacred form of government. Voting is the essential right that makes our system of government function. It is this right to vote, to decide who will lead us, that makes this country great. The recent "felon-purge" list, put forth by Gov. Bush and Secretary of State, Glenda Hood, sought to remove over 48,000 voters from the rolls. The administration sought to hide the list from public scrutiny, but was thwarted by a lawsuit and a judge who ruled the list should be made public. Analysis of the list revealed there were three times as many Democrats on the list as Republicans, most of them black. Hispanics however were strangely absent from the list, making up only 61 of the 48,000. Hispanics tend to vote Republican in our state. Not only that but there were approximately 2,000 names on the list belonging to people that received clemency or weren't ever felons. These revelations led to Gov. Bush dropping the list altogether. But the fact is, he never wanted us to find these flaws, he tried to keep this list a secret. We need more than apologies for incompetence, we need a full investigation. The disenfranchisement of our citizens is such a serious threat to our democracy that anything less undermines the credibility of our government and the very ideals on which this country was founded.

Florida Residents: Find your state rep. here.
Find your state senator here. (Gainesville Residents: Rod Smith is your state senator, smith.rod.web@flsenate.gov.) Tell them to demand an investigation.
And it wouldn't hurt to write your Congressperson & Senators too.