Thread: Florida Dem Sen Nelson: State Making it Harder to Vote

Legislature has no right making it harder to vote

By Bill Nelson, special to the Times
In Print: Tuesday, May 3, 2011
76 Comments

No state has a right to make a law, or to enforce an old statute, if it abridges basic rights of people in whom the Constitution vests power.

How, then, can the Florida Legislature reasonably justify a measure now at hand — one that absolutely would make it harder for a substantial number of citizens to vote?

Current law allows early voting for a 14-day period in advance of an election. That would be shortened to just six days.

And while a few days less in which to vote may seem like a trivial difference, consider that about one-third of all votes in Florida were cast during early voting in the 2008 presidential election year. Early voting is convenient for voters, especially in a state like Florida with a large population of seniors who may not want, or be able, to wait in long lines on Election Day.

Current law also allows registered voters, such as college students or newlyweds with a name or address change, to cast a ballot. But this new legislation would force these voters to cast so-called provisional ballots. This would create an administrative nightmare for the local supervisor of elections, who must look at each provisional ballot individually. In 2008, about half of the provisional ballots in our state ended up not counting toward the final results.

At one time in our country, women and African-Americans didn't have the basic right to vote. After being arrested for casting an illegal vote in the presidential election of 1872, Susan B. Anthony called it "a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty, while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them … the ballot."

Some might say this new legislation is a downright mockery, too, that almost 140 years after her arrest we still have elected representatives looking for ways to constrict access to the ballot box.

The proposal we're talking about would even penalize groups that help register new voters.

Any group or organization that conducts a registration drive — the League of Women Voters, for example — would have only two days to return registration cards to the supervisor of elections. If it doesn't do so within the two days, it could be fined up to $1,000. And the volunteers could be fined if mistakes are made in voter applications.

Shortening the time frame and threatening volunteers with a fine for mistakes is wrong. Most volunteers are helping people become registered voters.

I happen to believe that in a democracy we should be making it easier for people to vote, not harder, and not restricting anyone's right to vote.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once warned that "all types of conniving methods" can be used to keep people from becoming registered voters. "The denial of this sacred right," he said, "is a tragic betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic traditions, and it is democracy turned upside down."

It's true that our own country's path to democracy hasn't been without struggles. Minorities and women fought for years to have equal rights, including voting privileges.

Why would anyone now take aim at a means for making voting more convenient and easier for all?

So, let me ask of all members of the Florida Legislature — look beyond yourselves, beyond any partisan political differences, to every citizen in Florida.

Give them every means to exercise the power our Constitution says belongs to them.

Bill Nelson is Florida's senior U.S. senator.

[Last modified: May 02, 2011 07:39 PM]

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editori ... te/1167378

Let me simplify this for you

Sen Nelson is a Progressive and he wants Illegal Aliens Voting at the Polls so he can be re-elected

The Tea Party has his number and he is getting ready to be unemployeed because of his voting record

Its time to take out the trash America and lets go Florida; Sen Nelson is 1 of the first to go

Yesterday I received an E-Mail from Sen. Nelson asking me to call our legislature and complain ????

I could not blieve he had the nerve to write me when all my calls/e-mails to him have been about Illegal Immigration and his taking their side while FL. Citizens suffer and I tell I can hardly wait until 2012 to boot his az out of office.

Thats the same reason that Obama is bursting a gut pandering to Illegal Aliens in order to get Hispanic votes. this man really makes me sick the by the way he is bowing down to these people and their demands

Originally Posted by USPatriot

Yesterday I received an E-Mail from Sen. Nelson asking me to call our legislature and complain ????

I could not blieve he had the nerve to write me when all my calls/e-mails to him have been about Illegal Immigration and his taking their side while FL. Citizens suffer and I tell I can hardly wait until 2012 to boot his az out of office.

That just goes to show how much these greedy folks are not listening to the American Citizens and legal citizens in this country. our opinion just don't count when it comes to this subject. but I will admit, we do have some members in congress who have common sense. "THERE WAS A TIME IN THIS COUNTRY WHEN BLACKS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO VOTE IN THE SOUTH ESPECIALLY, AND THEY WERE CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY." AND NOW THEY WANT TO LET ILLEGALS VOTE WITHOUT BEING IN THE COUNTRY LEGALLY. there is truely a lot of common sense lacking in the U.S. government.

He's blowing in the wind, it's now easier than ever to vote. You can vote by absentee ballot, if you can't get to the polls. You can vote at the polls. Early voting is the newest way to vote, one which I don't agree with, but that's me.

Insisting on verifying a citizen's right to vote should be a no-brainer.

But we know that Nelson and his cronies don't want that, they want people (dead or alive, citizen and non-citizen), animal, vegetable and mineral) to vote and vote often.

If people can't be bothered to vote, then don't and quit the whining already.