Rubio: Revote "horrible precedent"; Wasserman Schultz starts petition to seat delegates for Clinton

[seafan]

This is reaching a level of the bizarre supernatural.


This is the grim price we are paying for frothing, Jeb Bush-spawned, right wing Republican control over our state government.


Now the Republicans glom onto the process of verifying voters' signatures, and if they can throw sand into the machinery, by God, they will:

March 14, 2008

...state officials said Florida law would prohibit them from authenticating voters' signatures.
Verifying the signatures and identities of people who vote by mail -- either through a conventional absentee ballot or in the Democrats' proposed statewide mailed election -- is considered a key bulwark against electoral fraud.
''There's no authority under Florida law that would allow county supervisors of election or the state to verify signatures in an election of a state party,'' said Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for Florida's (Republican) secretary of state and Division of Elections.

.....

First, to describe the situation as it stands:


March 13, 2008

State and national party leaders are considering a plan to mail self-addressed, pre-paid ballots to Florida's 4 million registered Democrats. The ballots would be due back in Tallahassee by election day, probably June 3. Votes would be tabulated by an independent party, such as an accounting firm or a company that runs corporate shareholder voting. The state party would pay state elections officials 10 cents per name to validate signatures against a voter database.

(Signature verification, addressed in the FL Democratic proposal.)



But, HOLD THE PHONE.

Republican Speaker of the FL House and Jeb Bush heir, Marco Rubio, is shrieking that he will NOT support the Secretary of State verifying any voter signatures!! He can't allow those upstart elections supervisors **authority they don't have.** This is purely amazing. We have this brand new centralized voter database in FL, and Rubio claims our own elections supervisors have *no authority* to use it to verify voters' signatures to support a Democratic Party-run mail-in primary ?!?


Is this what Republican-ruled Florida "government" has come to now? It's tyranny.


The one bright spot in this is that Rubio is term-limited out at the end of this year. But, then, we'll need to stop his push to run for Governor.




House Speaker Marco Rubio-R

Rubio says calls for a re-vote "horrible precedent"

March 13, 2008

House Speaker Marco Rubio blasted the continued talk of a Democratic mail-in primary re-vote Thursday, saying he will not support any attempt to use the Secretary of State's office or give supervisors of elections authority they don't have now to verify signatures.

"To continue to talk about this is ridiculous,'' Rubio said. "For the state to participate in any way in helping with a mail or any sort of re-vote effort sets a horrible precedent for the future -- where' you're going to have party bosses coming down to Florida, when they don't like the outcome and don't like the election date and forcing us to vote again. This is a horrible precedent to set and we want no part of it.''

Rubio, who promoted and steered the early primary date through the Legislature last year, said he wants all Florida delegates to be counted, including all of the Republicans.

March 13, 2008

Rubio blasts 'ridiculous' mail-in idea

House Speaker Marco Rubio lambasted the call by Democrats (and seconded by Republican Gov. Charlie Crist) for state supervisors of elections to verify signatures in a planned mail-in primary.

Rubio "To continue to talk about this is ridiculous," Rubio said. "For the state to participate in any way in helping with a mail-in or any sort of re-vote effort sets a horrible precedent for the future where you're going to have party bosses, from either party, coming down to Florida when they don't like the outcome or they don't like the election date and forcing us to vote again. That is a horrible precedent to set, and we want no part of it and we’ll do everything we can to prevent it."

Hear his full comments here.

And, in the meantime, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is starting a petition drive to force the counting of the ghost delegates for her girl.

Wasserman Schultz Starts Petition To Both Parties To Count Fla. Votes

Mar 13, 2008 by William March

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston, who backs Hillary Clinton but opposes plans for a mail-in primary re-vote in Florida, will hold a meeting Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale to start a petition drive urging both parties to count fully the Florida presidential primary votes.

The petition—apparently somewhat hastily written—says, “The Democratic National Committee along with the Republican National Committee who are both trying to keep control over the nominating process, is wrongly punishing Florida’s voters.”

It says the parties’ decisions to penalize Florida voters because the primary was held a week too early will “risk tainting the historic nature of this primary.”

The Democratic Party has said it won’t seat a Florida delegation at its national convention because of the too-early primary date, and the GOP has said it will cut the Florida delegation in half.

MIAMI HERALD FILE


This is the same Debbie Wasserman Schultz who admits such close professional and personal ties with her right wing Miami Republican friends Mario and Lincoln Diaz Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen that she will not actively support her Democratic colleagues in their challenges to unseat these three Bush right wing extremists this November.


Right wing ideologues such as Marco Rubio and turncoats such as Debbie Wasserman Schultz are destroying our party.

[madaboutharry]

1. Do you recall how these good friends

of Wasserman Schultz behaved during the Elian Gonzales fiasco? They should have been charged with accessory to a kidnapping. And when was the last time a republican ever supported a democrat?

No wonder we are such losers!:(

[Mika]

4. All Florida pols suck up to the intransigent Cuban and Ven "exiles".

If you don't call for Castro's head on a platter, or if you don't refer to (twice elected) President Chavez of Ven. as a dictator you just won't be elected in Florida.



-

[Kittycat]

2. WAsserman Schultz needs to start campaigning for Dem Downticket Candidates.

I heard yesterday that she won't campaign against already elected republicans for democratic candidates trying to unseat them. WTF is that all about?

[MaineDem]

3. I love how these electeds feel they understand party politics

All year long they haven't a clue. They have very little to do with how the Party is run. But now people like W-S think they know enough to overturn the Party's rules.

Where are they all year long when we're looking for solidarity and strength from our Democratic Caucus in Congress?