{"id":9686,"date":"2012-11-02T13:03:04","date_gmt":"2012-11-02T20:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradblog.com\/?p=9686"},"modified":"2012-11-04T11:42:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T18:42:00","slug":"fl-gov-rick-scott-refuses-to-extend-days-for-early-voting-despite-hours-long-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=9686","title":{"rendered":"FL Gov. Rick Scott Refuses to Extend Days for Early Voting Despite Hours Long Lines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via Laura Conaway at MaddowBlog…<\/a><\/p>\n

After days of long lines and long waits for early voting, Florida Democrats asked Governor Rick Scott, a Republican, to extend early voting. It now ends on Saturday, because Republicans cut the number of days<\/a> for early voting in half. Citing heavy turnout, Dems and League of Women Voters asked Governor Scott to restore voting this Sunday, the last day for “Souls to the Polls” drives before the election.<\/p>\n

Governor Scott said no. From the Broward\/Palm-Beach New Times<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“Early voting will end Saturday night,” Scott told reporters in response to the request. “But I want everybody to get out to vote.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Scott’s Republican predecessor, Governor Charlie Christ, extended early voting in 2008<\/a> because voters were waiting in line for several hours. Then Barack Obama won the state, and Florida Republicans decided fewer days would be better somehow.<\/div>\n

The Palm Beach Post<\/i> also notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The attempt to hold down Democratic turnout is obvious. In prior years, more Democrats than Republicans have taken advantage of early voting. Many African-American church congregations organized trips to the polls after Sunday services.<\/p>\n

So, this year Republicans allowed only one Sunday of early voting. <\/p><\/div>\n

And Michael Grunwald from Time’s<\/i> “Swampland” blog described<\/a> his own experience attempting to Early Vote under the new Republican regime in Florida earlier this week:<\/p>\n

I tried to vote early on Saturday, but there were two-hour lines at the only open polling station in South Beach. So I gave up. I tried again Monday, but the wait was still an hour and a half. So I decided to come back Tuesday. It took 45 minutes in line, plus 15 minutes wading through 10 pages of intentionally incomprehensible ballot questions, but I voted. If I didn’t have such a flexible work schedule”\u201dand if I didn’t write about public policy for a living”\u201dmaybe I wouldn’t have.<\/div>\n

The fight to simply cast a vote<\/i> this year in the United States is a disgrace. One which the world, once again, is watching.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/b><\/center><\/p>\n

UPDATE 11\/4\/12:<\/b><\/i> Disgraceful. Voters forced to wait 6 hours to Early Vote in Democratic-leaning county after Democratic-leaning county. Take a look at the pictures in Maddow’s coverage Saturday night below…<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/center><\/p>\n

* * *<\/b><\/i><\/center><\/p>\n
The BRAD BLOG<\/a> covers your electoral system, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation<\/a> to help us keep going.<\/span>Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via Laura Conaway at MaddowBlog… After days of long lines and long waits for early voting, Florida Democrats asked Governor Rick Scott, a Republican, to extend early voting. It now ends on Saturday, because Republicans cut the number of days for early voting in half. Citing heavy turnout, Dems and League of Women Voters asked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[400,28,16,546],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-9686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election-2012","category-election-reform","category-florida","category-rick-scott","bb-type-bradblog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9686"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=9686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}