Amid Battle Over Florida Voter Rolls Accuracy, State Sues DHS
By Katrina Trinko
June 12, 2012 8:43 A.M.
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As I wrote last week, Florida officials are trying to verify that everyone registered to vote is a valid citizen by asking some of the voters whose records raise red flags to confirm their citizenship. Florida is currently using data from the state DMV to see whether non-citizens may be voting, but what they want to use are records from the Department of Homeland Security, which has more recent records on a person’s citizenship status. The Department has stalled, refusing to grant their request for access.
Now, the state is taking the next step: suing the DHS. From The Hill:
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) said he will sue the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to move forward with his controversial attempt to purge the voter rolls in his state of ineligible voters.
“I have a job to do to defend the right of legitimate voters,” Scott told Fox News on Monday. “We’ve been asking for the Department of Homeland Security’s database, SAVE, for months, and they haven’t given it to us. So this afternoon, we will be filing a lawsuit, the secretary of State of Florida, against the Department of Homeland Security to give us that database. We want to have fair, honest elections in our state and we have been put in a position that we have to sue the federal government to get this information.”
Thanks to Florida’s status as a swing state, don’t expect either side to give up soon on this.
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