PolitiFact Nails Chris Matthews For Misrepresenting Florida Voter Registration Law

Mediaite.com:

PolitiFact took MSNBC host Chris Matthews to task for a claim he made on his program last week where he criticized a 2011 Florida law that imposes a 48-hour deadline on new voter registration groups. “The 48-hour rule basically makes it impossible to meet the deadline if you’re working right to the end of the week,” said Matthews. PolitiFact rated this claim as “false”

In a June 4 interview with the Florida Republican party Chairman Lenny Curry, Matthews accused Curry and his party of instituting voter registration laws that intentionally restrict voter’s abilities to register. 

On his program, Matthews read from a Florida judge’s ruling on the law: “if the goal is to discourage voter registration drives, and thus also to make it harder for new voters to register, this may work,” Matthews read.

“Lenny Curry, you’re the chair of the Republican Party down there. Was the intention to suppress the vote down there, as Judith says, or it had some other purpose,” Matthews asked. “Why would you set a requirement you got to get your petitions in, in 48 hours? Why did you set such a requirement and a law?”

Curry responded in the negative and said that, in his view, such a deadline was reasonable. Matthews disagreed:

“Well, wait a minute. I’m going to call you there because everybody watching can figure this one out. If I’m working in front of a Safeway somewhere and I’m collecting registrations — I’m registering people who aren’t registered — and it’s Friday afternoon at 5:00 p.m., I can’t even technically turn those in until Monday. That means it’s already elapsed, the 48 hours.

“So, under the law, nothing I get done late Friday afternoon is of any value and probably some of the stuff early Saturday morning. The 48-hour rule basically makes it impossible to meet the deadline if you’re working right to the end of the week, right, Lenny?”

“You don’t have to be a lawyer to own a calendar or know what a weekend is,” Matthews continued. “A weekend is 48 hours.”

Matthews ended the interview by suggesting that he would take Curry to minority neighborhoods in the city of Philadelphia to participate in securing voter identification. “I could take you to some interesting neighborhoods, buddy,” said Matthews. 

PolitiFact took issue with Matthews claim that voter registration organizations would be unable to process new voters if they turned their petitions in on a Friday:

There’s no doubt the deadlines were deterring groups from going out to register voters. After the law’s passage, the League of Women Voters said they wouldn’t conduct their usual voter registration drives because the new requirements were too difficult to meet.

But Matthews said that Florida’s 2011 voting law made it impossible for third-party groups to register voters on Friday afternoon, because a 48-hour deadline to turn in those applications would expire before the elections office opens Monday morning.

That’s not correct. The law factored in weekends and holidays and gave voter registration groups until the next business day. We rate Matthews’ claim False.

 RELATED: Media Matters: The Message is More Important Than the Facts

Obama Suing Florida - and Vice Versa - Over Voter Registration

Townhall.com:

The state of Florida recently engaged in a campaign to fight voter fraud, combing through their voter rolls to weed out illegitimately-registered voters. While they've been accused of invalidating legal voters' registrations, the effort has been having some modicum of success. 

[I]n the last few days, the Division of Elections released a list of the names of 86 voters it says have been removed by local supervisors because they were non-citizens between April 11 and June 8. About half of them are listed as having voted. 

That, backers of the purge effort say, proves the need for the move, because it shows that some non-citizens have indeed registered and cast votes. 

Florida Governor Rick Scott has been promoting his state's law as a necessary measure, especially absent the federal government's responsibility to combat voter fraud. But now, the Obama Administration is alleging that Florida is violating the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act. 

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Scott also defended the initiative. He denied that the purge could unfairly target Latino residents, and he said he's just trying to fairly enforce the law. 

"We need to have fair elections in our state. I want to make sure that when we have elections ... not one person's vote gets diluted by somebody that doesn't have the right to vote," Scott told Fox News. "We're doing the right thing. ... We have people that are voting illegally in our races -- that's not right." 

As we had with Arizona and SB 1070, a red state is taking the responsibility on itself to enforce laws that the federal government is allegedly not enforcing - and the Obama Administration has responded in kind with another lawsuit. 

RELATED:  Hispanic leaders worry over slow voter registration

Mitt Romney Learns From John McCain, Not Playing The Hypocritical Liberal Repudiation Game

Of course if the Left was really concerned about Mitt Romney's association with Donald Trump they'd call on Barack Obama to give back that $1M donation he got from vile, disgusting, misogynist Bill Maher some time back. But not only are they not concerned about Romney's best interests, they also have no interest in talking about the issues that really matter to most Americans and Mitt Romney knows it:

Mitt Romney's refusal to repudiate Donald Trump sends a signal, both to Democrats and the voting public: With the nation's future at stake in this November's election, Romney will not accommodate calls that he disown supporters who make ill-considered, unpopular, or sometimes outrageous statements on matters not fundamental to the campaign.

Romney aides believe that cooperating with Democrats and media figures who are demanding a Trump disavowal would most certainly lead to more calls for more disavowals of other figures in the future -- leaving Romney spending as much time apologizing for his supporters as campaigning for president.  Team Romney views it as a silly and one-sided game designed to distract voters from the central issue of the race, which they remain convinced will be President Obama's handling of the economy.

By one-sided, they mean not only that Obama has not disavowed SuperPAC contributor Bill Maher for a number of Maher's statements that were particularly insulting to Republican women.  They also mean the press, with, as Team Romney sees it, questionable associations of its own. Has David Gregory, moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press," repudiated his colleague Al Sharpton, the MSNBC host with a decades-long record of incendiary statements and actions?  And has, say, the New York Times columnist Gail Collins repudiated her colleague Charles Blow, who once wrote to Romney, "Stick that in your magic underwear"?  Romney, his team believes, understands that the calls for him to repudiate Trump over the issue of birtherism -- and future calls to repudiate this or that supporter next week or next month over some other issue -- are at the core all about politics.

Another reason Romney is wary of such concessions is that John McCain tried them, and they didn't do him any good.  For example, in February 2008, a local Ohio radio host, Bill Cunningham, introduced McCain at a rally in Cincinnati.  In the introduction, Cunningham referred to Obama three times by his full name, which at the time some Republicans feared would open them up to unspecified accusations of intolerance. "At one point, the media will quit taking sides in this thing," Cunningham said, "and start covering Barack Hussein Obama."  McCain immediately apologized and disavowed Cunningham's remarks.  Eleven months later, of course, Obama took the oath of office, beginning, "I, Barack Hussein Obama…"  In retrospect, the Cunningham episode looked ridiculous.  But at the time, it contributed to an image of McCain in retreat.

So the bottom line is, Romney is determined to stay away from anything that distracts him from the main issue of the campaign.  In the end, the thinking goes, the heart of the campaign will always be the economy and Barack Obama's stewardship of it.  Repudiating, or not repudiating, Donald Trump won't change that.

RELATED: Romney clinches GOP nomination with Texas win

Rasmussen Tracking Poll Puts Romney up 5, Santorum Up 1 Over Obama

The liberal media will continue to serve as an advocate for the Obama administration/agenda and do whatever they can to make sure he's re-elected. Conservatives know that. But with polls showing that only 32% of the country feeling that the country is heading in the right direction, unemployment at 8.3% and the foul double standards instituted by the Left continuing to display themselves week after week, the reality that the gig is up for Barack Obama's shocking presidency keeps getting closer and closer:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19 (see trends).


Looking at Tuesday's upcoming primaries, the GOP race in Alabama is essentially a three-way tie, while Mitt Romney leads by eight in Mississippi. Nationally, Romney now leads Rick Santorum by 12 points. Regardless of who they want to win, 80% of Republican Primary Voters nationwide believe Romney will be the party's nominee.


With the perception growing that he will be the GOP nominee, Romney leads President Obama by five points in a hypothetical 2012 matchup. Today's numbers show Romney at 48%, Obama at 43%. That’s Romney’s largest lead since December. Matchup results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update).


If Santorum is the Republican nominee, he is up by one point over the president, 46% to 45%. This is the second time since polling began in 2011 that Santorum has had a slight lead over Obama. Romney is the only other candidate to lead the president more than one time in the polls. See tracking history for Obama vs. all four Republican candidates.

RELATED: Santorum takes Kansas; Romney wins Wyoming

Politiks As Usual: In The News 8/29/11

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