GOVERNOR SCOTT’S GOAL IN 2014 IS TO SHRINK THE MINORITY VOTE

There will be a gubernatorial election in 2014 in Florida and the strategy is to win the position by spending the most money.  In 2010, Gov. Rick Scott spent more than $70 million of his own money to win the election and this time around, he will spend $120 million from the Republican Party and his coffers.

Former Gov. Charlie Crist will probably be the Democratic candidate and Floridians trust him more than they trust Scott. Crist will be supported by the minority vote and Scott knows that he must shrink that segment of the electorate to win the election.

Scott is supported by the tea party movement and large corporations in the state but Crist is supported by grassroots Floridians. In order for Crist to win, he must expand the base by registering more new voters who are African Americans and Latinos. Crist knows that he will not be able to raise more money than Scott but Florida has more registered Democrats on the voter rolls.

In 2012, more than 8.4 million Floridians voted in the federal election and President Barack Obama, a Democrat won. Floridians went to the polls and waited up to five hours to make their voices heard. Republicans in 2014 want to control and limit the number of voters who turnout. The Republicans do not like early voting and they will work to decrease the number of early voting sites.

Scott has already started a new voter purge whose objective is to take Latino Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Caribbean Americans and ex-felons off the voter rolls. Since Scott has been in office, Florida’s Clemency Board, of which he is the chairman, has been applying the most restrictive criteria in the nation when it comes to those who have served their sentences.

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