Now Florida is the aggressor, having turned the waiting-game tables on the Department of Justice.
Having imposed their own deadline for the DOJ, Florida officials are watching the clock.
With court battles anticipated, the state continues to wait for answers to questions on the legality of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security having for months kept the state from accessing a database requested to help check the voter rolls for noncitizens.
Asked just after noon Thursday if the governors office or secretary of state had heard any response from the feds, Gov. Rick Scott spokesman Lane Wright responded in an email: After 19 hours? No. Not yet.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Ken Detzner made it clear Florida isnt ready to halt its search of noncitizens as he sent a string of questions as part of a response to the deadline the federal department had set for Wednesday for Florida to halt the review.
Detzner also gave the DOJ until Monday to respond to his questions.
A DOJ official responded simply in an email Thursday that the department is currently reviewing the letter it received from the Florida secretary of state regarding reported voter list maintenance.
In a four-page response to the DOJ's letter of May 31, Detzner had questioned whether the justice agency is endorsing Homeland Securitys reluctance to open the database, which resulted in the state now being beyond a deadline to conduct the review.
Detzner also added a series of questions he wants the DOJ to answer, including if Homeland Security has a legal obligation to provide Florida access to the SAVE database, and what steps the DOJ believes Florida should take to identify and remove noncitizens from its voter registration list.
Democrats and civil rights groups that have opposed the review have increased their resistance since Detzners letter was released.
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, during a congressional hearing Thursday, said the states review was guaranteed to result in mistakes and fails to explain how the names of longtime citizens appeared on the list.
Everyone here agrees we dont want noncitizens on the roll, Deutch said. This purge will remove thousands of legitimate voters. Why is there no concern for these voters?
Attorney General Eric Holder responded that he had yet to see the states response, or a letter Wednesday from U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, that claimed the attorney general is now actively working to enable voter fraud and allow illegal immigrants to cast votes in the state of Florida.
Holder said that the law is clear that states cant conduct such reviews to remove voters within 90 days of an election.
The notion that this is somehow a political ploy is inconsistent, Holder said. One only has to look at the law, which is clear: its 90 days.
On May 31, Christian Herren, the DOJs chief civil rights lawyer, gave Detzner until Wednesday to halt the voter roll review that has drawn sharp opposition from Democrats and minority groups.
Herren claims the effort may violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act -- requiring federal preclearance before undertaking any changes in Monroe, Hillsborough, Collier, Hardee and Hendry counties, which have past experience with minority-voting problems -- and that because of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, time has run out for the review before the 2012 elections.
In his letter, Herren didnt mention that the Department of Homeland Security has delayed or stonewalled, since at least last September, requests from Florida to obtain updated citizenship information.
Florida has been requesting the information to comply with the federal Motor Voter law, which requires states to remove ineligible voters from the list of registered voters.
Herrens letter prompted the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections on June 1 to advise supervisors to put the review on hold.
Reach Jim Turner at jturner@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 215-9889.
