Now that Jimmy Carter has called attention to evidence of voter discrimination in Florida, the issue is starting to get some attention from the press. However, U.S. media outlets continue to ignore a key aspect of the story: the truth about what happened in 2000. As Greg Palast reported, Jeb Bush’s Florida election officials issued a list of 94,000 voters to be purged from the electoral roll for being felons. African Americans made up a majority of those on the list, and Democrats made up 80 percent, but only five percent were felons. Jeb’s purge list was the crucial document that papered over his brother’s electoral defeat. In 2001, the NAACP launched a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the disenfranchised voters. The state of Florida  settled the suit by agreeing to restore to the electoral roll all those who had been wrongly removed. But the 2000 purge still hangs over this election, as does a new felon list issued by the state. Equally ominous are the recent news reports of police harassment of black activists who were attempting to register voters.

Palast, who not only broke the Florida election story but worked with the NAACP in its lawsuit, says that only around 2,000 of the 94,000 people on the old felon list have had their voting rights restored. Despite the lack of progress on that front, Florida officials found time to create a purge list for 2004, this one bearing 47,000 names. In July, following press reports of errors on the new list, the NAACP’s president, Kweisi Mfume, announced that “Florida is not following the process negotiated by the NAACP,” and called on the U.S. Department of Justice to stop the new purge. In response, Glenda Hood, Florida’s secretary of state, issued a press release stating that “there is an unintentional and unforeseen discrepancy related to the Hispanic classification” on the felon list and that her department was “removing this portion of the Central Voter Database for the 2004 elections cycle.” “This portion” appears to refer to the entire felon list, but Hood’s office did not respond to a request for clarification on that point or on the other issues discussed in this article. The secretary’s press release concludes by saying that election supervisors would “work with Clerks of the Court to ensure that ineligible felons are removed from the rolls.”

Concerns about the situation in Florida have prompted the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to commence a major initiative in the state: the “Truth and Justice Campaign.” The campaign’s director, Rev. Willie Bolden, explains that SCLC’s aims are two-fold: to obtain affidavits from those who tried to vote in 2000 but were wrongly turned away, and to get out the vote in 2000, highlighting any obstacles that emerge. During the last week in September, officers from SCLC’s national and state offices toured localities across Florida. However, the catastrophic weather there has affected the campaign as much as other aspects of life, and caused SCLC to cancel visits to hurricane-stricken areas.

SCLC officers are trying to get more information about published reports that plainclothes police have been harassing people involved in voter registration drives in African American neighborhoods. Leaders of SCLC’s Florida chapter sent a letter about the matter to Secretary Hood’s office, but received no reply. Bolden is not surprised by the apparent lack of interest on the part of state authorities. “We don’t need to spend a lot of time trying to get help from Jeb Bush. We need to organize people and inform America about what’s going on in Florida.”

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, SCLC’s interim president, reports that he also wrote Secretary Hood to state his concerns about the potential for further voter discrimination. He did receive a response, but said that it merely explained the basics of state voting laws. How does the Florida situation compare to cases in other states where SCLC has been investigating possible voter discrimination? “Florida tries to get people off the rolls. I’ve never seen it that strong in any other state.”

For his part, Rev. Bolden says that he hopes the affidavits from victims of voter discrimination will preserve the true story of the 2000 election for history. But the question troubling him and other civil rights activists is whether history is repeating itself.

—Chris Pepus

In The Fray Contributor