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Posted Jun 2, 2012, 6:53 pm

Howard Goodman Florida Center for Investigative Reporting

One of the weird things about politics in Florida is that, although Republicans own commanding majorities in both houses of the legislature and have consistently won the governorship since 1998, Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 500,000 registered voters.

Around 4.5 million voters are registered as Democrats, compared to 4 million Republicans, according to Florida Division of Elections data through April 12. Another 2.7 million are registered as "other."

The Democrats' present lead is smaller than it was in 2008, when Barack Obama defeated John McCain for the White House. During that fevered campaign, registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans 4.8 million to 4.1 million — with 700,000 new Democrats having been added to the rolls in the previous year.

Obama won Florida's 27 electoral votes by getting 4.1 million votes to McCain's 3.9 million. It was a rather small margin of victory — 50.9 percent to 48.4 percent — and it had to make both parties newly appreciative of the power of the simple mechanics of politics: registering voters and getting them to the polls.

Hell, why go to the trouble of persuading people to vote for your guy when it’s so much easier to keep them from taking part in the election at all?

But just one of those parties has its hands on the levers of state government. And it seems to be doing all it can to blunt the other major party's numerical advantage. Only, this isn't just some numbers game. It's about taking steps to prevent people from voting. Hell, why go to the trouble of persuading people to vote for your guy when it's so much easier to keep them from taking part in the election at all?

First, we had the legislature's move last year to enact a new voting law that makes it so hard to register voters that independent groups like the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote halted their efforts in Florida. That law is now under review by a federal court.

Another provision shortens the early-voting period from 14 days to eight. And it bans registering voters on the Sunday before Election Day.

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These restrictions are a particular worry to African-Americans. These — and similar barriers erected in other states — are the subject of a meeting this week in Washington among black clergy and the Black Congressional Caucus. The McClatchy newspaper chain reports:

In 2008, scores of African-American churches in Florida and across the country held "Souls to the Polls" drives, in which churches helped parishioners go directly from the pews to the polls after Sunday services.

African-Americans made up only 13 percent of voters in Florida but 22 percent of early voters. And they accounted for 31 percent of voters on the final Sunday before the election, Dartmouth College government professor Michael Herron and University of Florida political science professor Daniel Smith told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee in January.

African Methodist Church Bishop McKinley Young, whose district encompasses Florida and the Bahamas, said losing that last Sunday "hurts the scope and reach of the people with 'Souls to the Polls'" and will make turnout efforts tougher for African-American clergy.

Second, we have the drive by Gov. Rick Scott and Secretary of State Ken Detzner to purge the rolls of thousands of suspected noncitizens. Late last year, Scott ordered his then-Secretary of State, Kurt Browning, to "identify and remove non-U.S. citizens from the voter rolls."

But Browning didn't have reliable citizenship data to go on. A list created from motor-vehicle department information coughed up 182,000 names. Browning considered the list so flawed that he refused to forward it to county elections officials. Browning resigned in February. With a new man in place, Scott pressed on, starting with 2,600 voters.

Those folks have received letters, telling them their voter registration will be scrubbed unless they produce proof of citizenship within 30 days. Most of them, of course, are Hispanics, Democrats and independents.

Already, mistakes are popping up. Maureen Russo — born in Akron, Ohio, and a registered voter for 40 years — received such a letter. She's one of 259 residents of Broward County who did. According to ThinkProgress, only seven had responded as of Saturday. If the others don't answer by around June 5, they'll be ineligible to vote.

In Pasco County, Ohio-born Manoly Castro-Williamson, a faithful voter for years, also received one of the letters — another mistake.

In Miami-Dade County, "1,638 people were flagged by the state as 'noncitizens.' Already, 359 people on the list have provided the county with proof of citizenship and 26 people were identified as U.S. citizens directly by the county. The remaining 1,200 have simply not responded to the letter informing them of their purported ineligibility. Similar problems have been identified in Polk County and Broward County," the liberal ThinkProgress website reports.

This year's presidential race looks to be exceptionally close. Just look at two polls released last week, one showing Obama clearly ahead of Romney — the other showing Romney clearly ahead of Obama.