How many illegal alien and other non-citizen voters should be able to vote in Florida in the 2012 election? The State of Florida has taken a “zero tolerance” approach to this question while the Obama Justice Department seems to be saying “the more the merrier!”

This confrontation has led to a critical showdown in a major swing state just five months before Election Day 2012.

It all began a couple of weeks ago, when Florida election officials began doing what the law requires, attempting to clean its voter rolls of ineligible voters.  Importantly, Florida took action only after Judicial Watch sent a letter to the Florida’s two top election officials requesting information about Florida’s voting list maintenance procedures.  The state’s response to our letter of inquiry disclosed to us the massive number of dead voters on the rolls and a promise to remove them.   You can view our letter to Florida here and the state’s response here.

(Our efforts in Florida are part of Judicial Watch’s 2012 Election Integrity Project. We’re targeting states with the dirtiest voter registration rolls and threatening to sue if they don’t fix the problem. Our legal team is right now preparing lawsuits against three states.  And we are considering our options in several other states.)

Now, Florida did not begin wiping people off lists randomly. Officials simply began notifying individuals on the list they believed may be ineligible and asked them to prove otherwise.

The Obama Justice Department, which seemingly has initiated a systematic effort to make sure voter rolls remain dirty, objected to this initiative. On May 31, 2012, T. Christian Herren, Chief of the Voting Section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division,wrote a letter to Florida officials ordering a halt to the voting roll list maintenance process.

In an excellent piece for The National Review, Hans Von Spakovksy puts this unprecedented move by Justice in perspective: “This goes far beyond Holder’s previous actions, such as belittling claims of voter fraud and trying to stop voter ID and other reform measures intended to improve the integrity of the election process. This letter would directly abet vote thieves in a key state as Holder’s boss seeks re-election this November.”

Hans further points out that Florida is directed by federal law to undertake such a review of voter registration laws and that it is a felony punishable up to three years in prison to make a false claim of citizenship in order to register to vote!

So why is the Justice Department attacking Florida for following federal law?  Why indeed?

The Justice Department’s letter demanded a response by Wednesday of this week. The Justice Department got a response alright, but not the one they wanted.

As reported by Reuter’s:

“The Florida Department of State has a solemn obligation to ensure the integrity of elections in this state,” said Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner in a letter to the Justice Department.

“Permitting ineligible, non-citizen voters to cast ballots undermines that mission and erodes the justified faith the electorate has in the fairness and reliability of the electoral process,” he added.

So the clean-up will continue! (As will the Justice Department’s legal attack on Florida, I’m sure.)  You can review the Florida’s official response to the Obama Justice Department intimidation tactics here. And here’s a Q&A sheet presented by the Florida State Department that details the state’s position on the illegal voter purge.

The Justice Department “line” is that Florida’s efforts to clean up voter registration lists of non-citizen voters might disenfranchise minority voters. But that is a ridiculous argument that is merely intended to obscure the outright fraud taking place across the country.

In the State of Florida, for example, a state that once decided a presidential election by 537 votes, the Florida examination has already identified 2,700 non-citizens registered to vote – so far.  (Press reports suggest this number could be as high as 180,000.)

And this problem is certainly not limited to Florida.

As The Washington Times noted this week:

These include inaccurate or duplicate records, people registered in two or more states and almost 2 million voters who are on the books even though they are deceased. The number of bad registrations is daunting; 24 million is larger than the winning margins of the last five presidential races combined. If the 2012 race is close, the potential impact of fraudulent votes is magnified.
“Could illegal voting decide the next presidential election?” the Washington Times editorial asks.  “Steps are being taken by the Justice Department that may help guarantee it.”

In addition to its showdown with the Obama Justice Department, the State of Florida recently lost a battle in court against the Obama campaign over a series of voter integrity initiatives it had planned to implement. According to The Washington Post:

…Hinkle blocked Florida from enforcing parts of its new voting law, including provisions that require groups that collect voter registration forms to return them to state officials within 48 hours. The provisions also mandate that all volunteer workers must file sworn statements saying they will obey state laws in registering voters.

I believe the ACLU and Project Vote have been pulling the strings behind the scenes at the Justice Department over these issues. (For example, see this June 20, 2011 letter signed by representatives of both organizations complaining to the Justice Department about Florida’s election integrity law.  As we note in our first article above, we already know that Project Vote and the ACLU each have an “in” with leftists running Obama’s Justice.)

As you well know, Judicial Watch has devised a comprehensive strategy to counter the Obama machine’s scheme to steal the election. We call it our 2012 Election Integrity Campaign. You can read all about this effort here. And if you agree with me that this is one of the most important battles in Judicial Watch’s 17-year history, I hope you’ll consider making a tax-deductible contribution to make sure we have the resources to confront the Obama gang’s scheme on every front.

Judicial Watch does not support or oppose candidates for public office. We do, however, want to make sure that the election is fair and clean. I hope you’ll consider joining this effort.