Presidential elections always come down to the outcome in a small group of “swing states”, but this year one additional feature is becoming apparent. Even if he wins every other swing state, Romney can’t win without Florida. You’ll never guess what Republicans are trying to do to prevent Obama from winning the state.
…in order to predict the next election, we should ignore the polls of popular opinion on a national scale and instead focus on how the electoral map looks. The two tell a very different story.
There are certain states that we can be nearly sure will go one way or another. California’s electors will vote for the Democrat, and Texas’s electors will vote for the Republican. There are other states that we can safely assume which way they will go. Georgia will likely go Republican, and Pennsylvania will likely go Democrat. That leaves a few states that could go either way. This year, those states are generally agreed to be (from least electoral votes to most): New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, Missouri, Wisconsin, Arizona, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida.
Those are the battleground states. Those are the states that matter. In most election years, those votes would be fought over fiercely and non-stop for the next five months. Not this year though — this year, Barack Obama need not campaign as hard as one would assume.
It takes 270 electoral votes to win a presidential election. With the ‘safe’ and ‘likely’ votes all counted, Obama has 243, only 26 short of the magic number. Romney is at 170, exactly 100 short. Looking at the map, Obama could essentially spend every cent he has in Florida (worth 29 electoral votes) and call it good. Romney could win every toss-up state but Florida and still lose… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Huffington Post>
To correct this the Republican Party is trying to stack the deck in Florida by purging legitimate voters from the rolls, the way they did in 2000, with help from people who threw away their votes. Fortunately DOJ is stepping in.
The Justice Department sent a letter to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner Thursday evening demanding the state cease purging its voting rolls because the process it is using has not been cleared under the Voting Rights Act, TPM has learned.
DOJ also said that Florida’s voter roll purge violated the National Voter Registration Act, which stipulates that voter roll maintenance should have ceased 90 days before an election, which given Florida’s August 14 primary, meant May 16.
Five of Florida’s counties are subject to the Voting Rights Act, but the state never sought permission from either the Justice Department or a federal court to implement its voter roll maintenance program. Florida officials said they were trying to remove non-citizens from the voting rolls, but a flawed process led to several U.S. citizens being asked to prove their citizenship status or be kicked off the rolls… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <TPM>
Ed Schultz and his panel explore the history and reality of the Republican Party disenfranchising legal voters.
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There can be no doubt that this is a blatant attempt at election theft. They must be stopped and sent the way of the Whig Party.
23 Responses to “Romney Can’t Win Without Florida”
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Well, that is very bad news. If Romney wants Florida, the insane right wing lunatic of a governor will make sure Romney gets Florida. They are purging the voter rolls and I guarantee you, Dems won’t be voting quite so easily there. Florida is famous for right wing voter fraud.
I think DOJ may just muzzle Scott.
Seems the present day GOP is adept at lies and cheating.
” Even if he wins every other swing state, Romney can’t win without Florida.”
He won’t be getting my vote here in Florida… 🙂
Actually, he will if the voting machines are purposely tampered with again.
Amen to all the above!
Everyone needs to understand that we are in a war. We have an enemy that will do absolutely anything to win. They see the normal social restraints of empathy, ethics, morality and honesty as weaknesses on our part that they can exploit to defeat and control us, and they have the will and the resources to do so effectlively. Plan you actions accordingly – this is truly a “no quarters” election.
There’s nothing I can add to that. Accurately and succinctly stated.
John, I could not have said it better.
NPR yesterday advised people to get write-in ballots. I am going to do that.
Excellent idea!
One of the reasons the Republicans are so against Oregon’s vote-by-mail system, which effectively gives everybody an absentee ballot, is that it is too difficult for them to bugger the results. Wish we could get other states to give it a try. Ask any Oregonian, the system works just fine and helps to insulate voter turn-out from variables like bad weather, lack of transportation, and intimidation.
As an additional benefit, Oregon’s Voters Bill of Rights is anathema to the conservatives – it supports everything they are trying to destroy.
In my opinion, ours (OR) is best system in the country.
I completely agree, wish we could get it put in place in other states – imagine the problems vote-by-mail would cause for Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
Just for the record, I’m only 100 miles south of you, in Eugene.
I know, John. Marva and I are long term online friends, If fact, I’m reading one of her books on Kindle. 🙂
It’s about time our DOJ stepped in to put a stop to voter suppression. What about the rest of the states who have enacted draconian voter laws in the past year?
It’s much easier for DOJ to intervene in states with a history under the Voting rights act.
So that’s their last gasp — back to Jim Crow and ethnic-based vote suppression as a last stand against inexorable demographic change. Every article I’ve seen about this says that Hispanics are being especially targeted for purging (and not just in Florida).
Republicans like to think that as Hispanics become more assimilated, they’ll lean more Republican, but I doubt it — they won’t soon forget the Republicans pulling this shit.
Infidel, I;m not sure the color discrimination here is over black, brown red, white, or yellow. It’s about blue or red.
With approximately 32 cases of voter fraud nationally in 2006 voter fraud is being “…treated as a dire emergency to prevent a banana republic.” And how many millions of votes are there in the country that voter fraud should be an issue?
To me, this whole campaign by clearly Republican/Teabagger states to disenfranchise voters is true voter and election fraud. Why is it that we only hear about voter fraud from Republican/Teabagger controlled states? Why is there no massive ground swell of indignation coming from the people in Democratic states? In my mind, this is nothing more than political bullying by power hungry individuals for whom ‘winning at all costs’ means everything. And if there is any doubt about the political bullying, just look at the Republican/Teabagger war on women, war on the poor, war on the middle class, war on the LGBT community. Just look at the religious evangelical rightwing nut zealots, the Christian Taliban, and their desire to use bible based laws and morals in a pluralistic society.
Every Republican/Teabagger in office is one too many. Time to call PCO Pied Piper to exterminate the political vermin.
Vote Democrat 2012!!!!! Vote Obama/Biden 2012!!!!!
If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that comment was from me. 🙂
The problem is not voter fraud. If there is a problem, it is election fraud — disenfranchisement of voters and false counting votes. We need to go back to paper ballots. They are the perfect “paper trail”.
Jerry, that’s exactly what we have in Oregon. Paper ballots voted by mail.