CNN Crossfire co-host Tucker Carlson claimed on the July 27 edition of the show that "[n]obody prevented anyone from voting" in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. Carlson then added that the reason thousands of voters were purged from Florida's voter lists prior to the election was "[b]ecause they were convicted felons" -- an assertion contradicted by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in its June 2001 report "Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election."
From the July 27 edition of CNN's Crossfire:
CARLSON: [N]o one is going to prevent anyone else from voting.
BEGALA: Oh, they did in Florida. They disenfranchised tens of thousands of people.
CARLSON: That's a total lie. That's a total lie -- as you know.
BEGALA: No, it's not.
CARLSON: Nobody prevented anyone from voting.
BEGALA: They knocked tens of thousands off the rolls in Florida.
CARLSON: Because they were convicted felons, Paul.
BEGALA: No, they weren't. That's the problem. They got it wrong.
CARLSON: OK, I can't re-argue something, especially when you're wrong.
BEGALA: No, I'm right.
In fact, according to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, numerous Florida voters were wrongly disenfranchised, largely as a result of an inaccurate list of supposed felons who were wrongly deemed ineligible to vote. In June 2001, the Commission reported that "Florida's reliance on a flawed voter exclusion list" -- provided to counties by Katherine Harris, then Florida's secretary of state and currently a Republican member of Congress -- "had the result of denying African Americans the right to vote." Regarding that flawed voter exclusion file, an article published by Salon.com in December 2000 reported that: (more)
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