The Washington Monthly

August 16, 2004

VOTER INTIMIDATION IN ORLANDO?....Via (Mrs.) Atrios, Bob Herbert reports on a fishy investigation of voter fraud going on in Florida:

State police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes. Some of those questioned have been volunteers in get-out-the-vote campaigns.

I asked [Department of Law Enforcement spokesman Geo] Morales in a telephone conversation to tell me what criminal activity had taken place.

"I can't talk about that," he said.

I asked if all the people interrogated were black.

"Well, mainly it was a black neighborhood we were looking at — yes,'' he said.

He also said, "Most of them were elderly."

When I asked why, he said, "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview."

Unlike Mrs. Atrios, I'm not sure this is such a bad thing. That is to say, of course this is a bad thing if it's part of an intimidation campaign in black neighborhoods, but in the end this kind of hamhanded stuff might motivate more voters than it intimidates. At least, if there's any justice it will.

Maybe John Kerry needs to swap his schedule around and make an impromptu visit to Orlando.

—Kevin Drum 12:01 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (0)

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