Florida official: Voter purge will continue

Charges of voter suppression are only growing in the state of Florida. As we reported yesterday on The Last Word, that state’s Republican Governor Rick Scott is being accused of leading a “misguided” purge of the voter registration rolls. You can see our report in the video above. Florida officials have put together a list of around 180,000 people they believe are not U.S. citizens and should not be allowed to vote.

State election officials have already sent out thousands of letters telling some Florida residents that the state does not consider them citizens. Two Congressional Democrats from Florida, Rep. Ted Deutch and Rep. Alcee Hastings, are fighting back on behalf of those who say they are being unfairly targeted.

But the state’s election office says more names are still yet to come. The Miami Herald reports:

Chris Cate, a spokesman for (Florida’s) Division of Elections, defended the state’s actions. “It’s very important we make sure ineligible voters can’t cast a ballot,” he said in an email to the Herald on Tuesday.

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He said the state continues to identify ineligible voters, saying the state Division of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has agreed to update information using a federal database that the elections division couldn’t access directly.

“We won’t be sending any new names to supervisors until the information we have is updated, because we always want to make sure we are using the best information available,” Cate wrote. “I don’t have a timetable on when the next list of names will be sent to supervisors, but there will be more names.”

The Miami Herald also reported earlier this month that minorities, Democrats, and independents were more likely to be scrutinized in this voter purge.