I’ve been trying to collect my thoughts on Florida’s “purging” of the voter rolls of “illegal” a.k.a. Democratic voters. This is the clearly the dirtiest of all politics. Ask yourself this… How many white conservative voters in the panhandle will find they have “purged” from the rolls this November? How many minority/citizen and likely Democratic voters will find they have been “inadvertently purged” on election day, after it is too late to re-register? If Florida has actually registered a significant number of non-citizens to vote then can it be trusted to purge only non-citizen voters in an election year?

This move is just the latest political pandering brought about by Republican Governor Rick Scott, the man who brought about drug screening for welfare recipients. That program was intended to save Florida tax payers money that Scott must have presumed was being spent on drugs instead of easing the pain of poverty. It has been estimated by some that this program actually cost the state of Florida nearly $50,000 dollars rather than creating the cost savings Governor Scott had hoped for. That money could have created at least one additional state job but then “job creation” is only a punch line the Republicans use to justify tax breaks for their wealthy donors.

Conservatives often like to use the argument that “working stiffs have to submit to drug screening so why not welfare recipients?” Well, it just so happens that Federal Courts have ruled the mandatory drug screening of Florida government employees to violate their Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. In fact, Governor Scott himself refused to submit to a drug screening request made by the staff of the Jon Stewart show.

The point is that Rick Scott has proven before that he is willing to use Floridians to score points with the conservative base and with the Republican Party as a whole by ordering Floridians to submit to testing he is unwilling to submit to himself. When you consider that any “non-citizen” voters Florida may identify would most likely be an insignificantly small number versus the risk of high numbers of citizen voters being disenfranchised, it must be concluded that Governor Scott is once again attempting to score points with the right by stealing another Florida Presidential Election for the GOP. A bid for a Romney/Scott ticket perhaps?

You can find more from The Progressive Cop at www.theprogressivecop.com or by searching the archives here at addicting info for “The Progressive Cop.” I look forward to your visit.