http://www.politico.com/states...-election-law-1391121

> TALLAHASSEE - Florida Republicans this spring insisted a contentious new election law curtailing access to ballot boxes was needed to prevent electoral fraud. It was not, they said, an attempt to gain a partisan advantage.

But a raft of internal emails and text messages obtained by POLITICO show the law was drafted with the help of the Republican Party of Florida's top lawyer - and that a crackdown on mail-in ballot requests was seen as a way for the GOP to erase the edge that Democrats had in mail-in voting during the 2020 election. The messages undercut the consistent argument made by Republicans that the new law was about preventing future electoral fraud.


The law - labeled "Jim Crow 2.0" by some Democrats - was passed at the strong urging of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed the bill at an exclusive event aired by Fox News. It advanced even as local election officials, including Republicans, criticized the measure after running a trouble-free election in 2020. One official went so far as to call it "slap in the face" while one north Florida supervisor recently told DeSantis he was resigning at the end of this month in part to oppose "continuous changes" in election laws.


DeSantis gives Fox 'exclusive' of him signing election bill
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Florida was just one of several GOP-controlled states that enacted voting restrictions in the aftermath of former President Donald Trump's loss and his unsubstantiated complaints about voter fraud, although it isn't as restrictive as laws passed in Georgia and Texas. When debating the bill in the waning moments of this year's legislative session, Republican Party of Florida chair and state Sen. Joe Gruters repeatedly said the bill would "make it as easy as possible to vote, and hard as possible to cheat."

Yet in one remarkable text exchange obtained by POLITICO, Gruters and lead House sponsor state Rep. Blaise Ingoglia (R-Spring Hill) went back-and-forth over proposals to shorten how long mail-in ballot requests are valid.

Gruters defended a Senate proposal to cancel all existing mail-in ballot requests, saying that it would be "devastating" for Republicans to keep them valid heading into the 2022 election when DeSantis and other state GOP officials are up for reelection. More than 2.18 million Democrats used mail-in ballots compared to 1.5 million Republican voters during the 2020 election where Trump easily won Florida. Part of that was due to the ongoing pandemic, as Democrats strongly encouraged voters to change their habits nationwide.

"We cannot make up ground. Trump campaign spent 10 million. Could not cut down lead," Gruters wrote to Ingoglia, who had been chair of the Republican Party of Florida before Gruters.<<

When it became clear that the voters would them, The GOP set out to choose the voters who could keep them in power. Of course they lied about voter reform being their basis, but Florida's election was virtually problem free and Desantis even bragged about the election supervisors efficiency and speed. Then he and his party set about forming a solution to a problem. That problem was more democrat voters choosing mail in ballots. It was never fraud or any kind of criminality. These emails prove what we all know. The GOP want to limit the number of registered voters with a series of limitations designed to prevent their votes from being cast. This is what passes for a party and this is what they will do to maintain power.

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"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.

They have given up on even the veneer of democracy. There are no boundaries in the bare knuckled fight for political power in this country.

The founders were deeply afraid of the emergence of political parties for this very reason.

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Capitalism is based on the ridiculous notion that you can enjoy limitless growth in a closed, finite system.

In biology, such behavior of cells is called "cancer".

Why the worry? Aren't all conservatives going to die of covid? You guys have it made. Florida will be like Ca. after 2022. Remember, patience is a virtue.

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I :heart; Q

And yet you are fine with cheating to win. lol

But yes, the Republican establishment is taking a serious wallop from the Covid virus. All Republican media has told them the vaccine is bad; this tactic will be a backfire of epic proportions. Not to mention that Desantis forced kids back into schools with no protection from an ever expanding and deadly virus. Everything had to be open and the children had to go back (on-line no longer available). This mega fail just might sting come election day.



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I was right.

MAGA fail 2.0... The wreckoning.

Why the QOP so willingly followed Qrump into extinction will be puzzled over but welcomed.

Take note that they want to make all races partisan. That's so the base, marginally informed in most cases, know which box to tick so the party can control judges and school boards as well as dog catchers.

The only solution I see is to eschew political parties altogether. Don't support or vote for either one.

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Capitalism is based on the ridiculous notion that you can enjoy limitless growth in a closed, finite system.

In biology, such behavior of cells is called "cancer".

Its a cynical last gasp of white privilege.

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"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.