ORLANDO — On a sticky Sunday afternoon in late May, Mark Wendell ambled through Loch Haven Park, a mossy, oak-covered green space wedged between a trio of lakes and the Orlando Science Center.
Among the two dozen food and vendor tents lining the sidewalks at the Orlando Fringe theater and arts festival was People Power for Florida’s table, cluttered with voter registration forms, stickers, and about 50 mismatched pens.
As Wendell, wearing flip-flops and a baseball cap, walked by, he noticed the civic engagement group’s purple “Register to Vote” sign.
“Are you registered to vote?” asked Roxanne Perret, one of the four organizers at the white tent, holding a clipboard and raising her voice over a nearby funk band.
“I am,” he said, “but in another state. I just moved here.”
After Wendell, 62, finished filling out the form, Perret recited a well-rehearsed disclaimer: She would turn in the paper to Orange County’s supervisor of elections within 10 days. He should get his new voter ID in the mail within 30 days.
Perret also handed him a slip of paper with her name and her group’s state registration number — an official receipt that is now required by law.
Without it, the organization could have been liable for hundreds of dollars in legal penalties under a law that Florida passed last year.
Republican lawmakers here and in Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, and Texas have enacted a variety of voter registration laws over the past four years. The measures add new requirements around registering and communicating with voters and threaten hefty penalties for violations.
The stated goal of the new laws is to prevent fraud, but some voting rights groups contend their real purpose is to dampen participation by likely Democratic voters.
“It’s a huge chilling effect on the organizations who are doing this work, and on voters,” said Jonathan Diaz, director of voting advocacy and partnerships at the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center, which has led lawsuits on behalf of the League of Women Voters chapters and other groups in Florida, Alabama, and Missouri.
Diaz thinks the recent state restrictions are a response to robust registration efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, which contributed to one of the highest turnouts in a presidential election in decades.
For a century, third-party voter registration groups have been a mainstay in broadening participation in the American political system, seeking out potential voters at festivals, parades, or outside grocery stores. These efforts date to the women’s suffrage movement, and many groups played a pivotal role during the Civil Rights Movement.
Over the past five years, more than 350 groups have signed up as third-party voter registration organizations with the Florida Division of Elections, including county political parties, individual residents, candidates, and religious and social groups.
Many whose focus is on young people or historically marginalized communities say they’ve had to change their operations to avoid fines or felony charges. Some have stopped registration drives altogether.
However, not every grassroots group finds the state law burdensome.
Seeing a gap in registration efforts for Republican voters, Barbara Casanova last year launched Citizens First, a Miami-based nonprofit that also helps people run for office.
The state law means extra costs for printing receipts, and she has some concerns about vague language in the statute, but her father — the highest-ranking Cuban American in President Ronald Reagan’s administration, according to her biography — always told her the GOP had two missions: Grow the party and get good people elected.
“It’s one of the prices we pay to be able to carry out our civic duty,” said Casanova, who serves as Citizens First’s president. “I think it’s worthwhile.”
‘Those fees can stack up’
Under the Florida law, third-party voter registration groups that employ noncitizen volunteers are subject to a $50,000 fine for each one — even those with green cards. They also are barred from using volunteers with certain felony convictions on elections-related charges, or for crimes such as fraud, forgery, or perjury.
The state can fine groups as much as $2,500 for each voter registration application that is turned in late. There are fines for turning in forms to the incorrect county. Total annual fines could reach $250,000 per organization. It also is a felony to hold on to registrants’ personal information for future outreach or other purposes.
Last month, a federal judge ruled it was unconstitutional for Florida to ban noncitizens from registering people to vote — finding the effort discriminated against Latino outreach — and blocked the state from enforcing the ban. Still, voter registration groups remain under immense pressure, said Democratic state Rep. Anna V. Eskamani, the founder of People Power for Florida.
“Those fees can stack up a lot more aggressively and just bankrupt your organization,” Eskamani said in an interview a week before the Orlando event.
Last year, the state fined her group $2,000 for missing a registration deadline to turn forms in for the August primary. But Eskamani called the fines “silly,” arguing those voters weren’t planning on voting until November. The state also fined People Power for Florida $3,000 for filing forms with the wrong county; the group said the state had made a mistake, and the fine was rescinded.
“Every day, I’m bracing for some sort of incorrect and burdensome fine,” Eskamani said.
Other Florida-based groups have had to reconsider whether it’s worth the fines or possible criminal penalties to conduct voter registration drives anymore.
The nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Florida, for example, decided last year to stop registering voters using paper applications for the first time since the organization began such efforts a century ago.
To avoid legal liability, the league instead directs potential voters to scan a QR code with a smartphone and register on their own. The league has spent thousands of dollars on mobile hot spots so festivalgoers can use the internet at the league’s booths.
“All of these penalties and prohibitions and difficulties and threats to us have just been extremely painful,” said Cecile Scoon, the Florida league’s co-president. “Under the latest set of laws, which are just so ruinous and prohibitive, we’ve had to protect our members and protect the league.”
The state’s new cap, now raised to a quarter of a million dollars in maximum yearly fines, is basically the group’s annual budget, she said.
For 70% of the 110 or so small, grassroots organizations in the state receiving resources and training from the national advocacy group Black Voters Matter, the new law has pushed them to stop voter registration drives, said Jamil Davis, the nonprofit’s Florida state organizing manager. He said the law is working as intended.
“People who support this bill think, ‘We get enough Black and brown voters out of the way for this election, it gives us a better opportunity to continue being in the seats that we’re currently in,’” Davis said.
He pointed to a 2021 report from Daniel Smith, a professor of political science at the University of Florida, which showed that Black and Latino Floridians are five times more likely than white residents to register to vote through a third-party voter registration organization.
Overall, more than 760,000 Floridians had registered to vote through these groups, according to the report. Smith, the chair of the university’s political science department, wrote it on behalf of voting rights groups during a court case over a separate bill Florida Republicans passed in 2021. That law added fines for returning forms late to election offices.
Behind the GOP effort
Republican lawmakers argued that Florida’s 2023 law was necessary to protect voters who trust outside groups to safeguard their personal information and submit their applications on time.
“Every cycle … there’s additional issues that arise with these organizations, which is prompting the additional need for enhanced measures of protection,” Republican state Sen. Danny Burgess, who chairs the Ethics and Elections Committee, told a local NBC affiliate in south Florida in April 2023, after he and his colleagues passed the measure.
Officials in the office of Florida Republican Secretary of State Cord Byrd declined an interview request, and instead pointed to its January report describing problems that “have plagued the state for years.” The report outlines how groups have at times altered political parties on registration forms without consent, registered dead or fake people, or forged application dates to avoid fines.
In April 2023, after the law passed, Byrd announced $34,400 in fines against Hard Knocks Strategies, a Democratic political strategy firm and third-party voter registration organization. Byrd said the firm showed “blatant disregard” for state laws by failing to return voter registration applications on time or to the correct county. The fines coincided with criminal charges against several members of the group on suspicion of turning in fraudulent applications, which have led to prison sentences.
Republicans in other states have cited similar fraud concerns when enacting voter drive restrictions.
In March, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, signed into law a measure that in part makes it illegal for groups to pre-fill a voter’s name or other information on an absentee ballot application. It also is a felony subject to 10 years in prison for someone to be paid by a group to assist voters with absentee ballot applications.
The Campaign Legal Center, along with the League of Women Voters of Alabama and a coalition of other voting rights and disability access groups, sued the state in April to block the law, arguing that it targets Black political engagement. The center also has argued that instances of bad actors submitting faulty forms are rare and have not led to many ineligible voters being registered.
Missouri Republicans in 2022 passed legislation that made it illegal for people to be paid to register voters. The legislation also required any person helping more than 10 residents with their voter registrations to register with the secretary of state.
However, a Cole County Circuit Court judge blocked parts of the law later that year, putting them on hold until the trial, which is set to start in August. The Campaign Legal Center represented the League of Women Voters of Missouri and the NAACP of Missouri in that suit.
‘This is definitely new’
Back at Orlando’s Loch Haven Park, organizers and volunteers with People Power for Florida scanned the lawn full of Adirondack chairs and yard games. The smoky smell of a nearby BBQ pit filled the humid air.
“Hey there, are you registered to vote?” Allison Minnerly, the group’s communications director, asked passersby. “Is your address up to date?” “Do you need help requesting a mail ballot?”
The crowd seemed politically engaged — volunteers only snagged a handful of takers, including local resident Crissie Auguste, 28, who updated the address on her voter registration.
“My parents are telling me I finally need to change my address,” she told Minnerly, signing the form as she clasped an umbrella under the other arm to block the intense sun.
The group updated several other registrations and talked through questions people asked about upcoming elections. They handed out dozens of purple-and-pink pamphlets and stickers.
The registration drive at the festival also gave the group a chance to train new volunteers.
Earlier in the day, Minnerly walked Jackie Stealey through an affidavit, asking her to sign that she attests under penalty of perjury that she is not a felon and is a U.S. citizen. The federal court had just ruled the latter requirement unconstitutional, but the organization had not discussed it with their legal team yet.
The new restrictions have made it difficult to recruit volunteers — not everyone is comfortable giving their personal information to people they help register to vote, Minnerly said. The restrictions also mean it takes more time to train new volunteers.
“This is definitely new,” she said. “We have to do a lot more to not expose ourselves to increased risk.”
–Matt Vasilogambros, Florida Phoenix
This article was first published by Stateline, which is associated with the nonprofit States Newsroom, the Phoenix’s parent organization. Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor for questions: [email protected]. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
kola says
Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to worry about. If you hiding something or lying, no wonder you scream about the rules.
Pierre Tristam says
Not how “freedom,” your right to be let alone, your right to owe accounts to nobody, or how the Bill of a rights work. This isn’t a police state. Or do we think, until we read comments like the above.
Curious says
Does that apply to vaccine mandates as well Pierre?
Pierre Tristam says
Why, yes. Yes it does, not so curiously. OANistically Ideological blinders aside, I don’t see how that’s any different than your city “mandating” you to put your garbage out Monday and Thursday so you don’t infest your house with plague-spreading rodents that’ll hop and bubo across the yard to the rest of the neighborhood before long and compromise everyone’s freedom to live a safe life—or, for that matter, how the state “mandates” pre-k vaccination, at least to those not diseased by religiously irresponsible exemptions, so your kids don’t pass on their rubella or smallpox to kids not-so abused by ignorant parents and more inclined to learning and fun than being some anti-government fanatic’s guinea pigs.
Laurel says
kola: That’s exactly (if you have nothing to hide) what Big Brother said in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. Check it out of your library and read it. It may be an eye opener for you.
Skibum says
Laurel, are you sure that novel is still in available in libraries here in the “free state of Florida” for people to actually check out and read?
Laurel says
Skibum: I wondered that myself. There was a time when “1984” was required reading in school. I didn’t get it in my class, but my friend, who was very clever finding good reading, recommended it to me. Then, she also recommended “Animal Farm” which I also read. She recommended some of the best science fiction books, and the like, for which I am eternally grateful! Now, the 1984 story is way too close to home!
JimboXYZ says
“Under the Florida law, third-party voter registration groups that employ noncitizen volunteers are subject to a $50,000 fine for each one — even those with green cards. They also are barred from using volunteers with certain felony convictions on elections-related charges, or for crimes such as fraud, forgery, or perjury.”
Who would have a problem with these for laws ? With all the border crisis going on in Texas, cartels & gangs crossing the border as freely as the drugs ? The new cartel crimes would include voter harvesting. Better to nip that in the bud before it becomes a bad election outcome for results & nobody can connect dots as usual to 2020 where the election counts froze for 4 days and Biden-Harris emerged as winners on a Saturday afternoon. Yep, they’re going to count all the votes ? For Biden to have won those states, every vote ballot would’ve had to have been a chronic Biden voter for tardiness ? Why is that ? Nobody finds that strange that Biden-Harris voters in battleground states waited until the last day to deliver a ballot that wouldn’t be counted by election Tuesday ? Who would allow a non-citizen to handle mail in ballots. The USPS to my knowledge does not employ non-citizens to handle any aspect of the US Mail ? Just revisit the news piece & family that had a property sold here in Flagler Couinty without their knowledge. They never caught the criminal sellers did they. Another example, the $ 700+K phishing payment that disappeared ?
Ray W. says
Once again, JimboXYZ, there is a difference between a political truth and legal truth.
The political truth about elections is that one party raises large sums of money and hopes to hold onto power by claiming that the 2020 election was stolen. Politicians do not swear to tell the truth when they utter their oaths to uphold the Constitution, so there is nothing to stop them from claiming that the election was stolen.
Legal truth tells us that the 2020 election was not stolen. That process requires that witnesses tell the truth under oath in a courtroom, and that all admitted evidence meets the standards of competency and reliability before a judge rules on the issue.
I have only one problem with you stating that the political truth is that the 2020 election was stolen. You will not admit that the legal truth is that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen. I am OK with you basing everything you believe on politicians and news sources that are not required to be truthful in their assertions. Have at it. I accept that I wasn’t there for a single erroneous ballot count. I suspect that you weren’t there for a single erroneous ballot count either. Since neither of us actually knows from first-hand experience whether any ballots were somehow falsified, the difference between us seems to be that I rely on the law for my truth, and you rely on politicians and newscasters for your truth.
Oy vey!
Deborah Coffey says
Do you like to eat? Stop with the lies about immigrants. Well over half the food on your table is there because of THEM!
Jbegler says
That is true!!!!
Done with
LEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND MIGRANT WORKERS!!!
feddy says
Let’s not cloud the term immigrants, are they here legally or illegally? We all know that many has came in to this country without going through the proper channels and have no document residents, are these the immigrants you are talking about?
Deborah Coffey says
Yep, lots of them! And, they’re being hired to pick and process our food.
Jim says
I think if you didn’t drink the Kool-Aid from Fox News and other “media”, you wouldn’t know what to do. All your “2020” stolen election dribble has been dispelled. I believe Trump and his allies filed around 60 or more lawsuits and lost every one of them. Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, that if there had been the large scale voting scandal that you incoherently spew, they might have won at least one? (And, by the way, many of those lawsuits were denied by Trump appointed judges so you can’t say it was just liberal judges ruling – well, YOU can say that but a reasonable person wouldn’t.)
And please tell all of us how the news that scammers are trying to sell property they don’t own and the school system getting scammed out of $700k has anything to do with voter registration law? If you’re going to argue for or against something, at least try to have a logical argument.
Wiser One says
The Kool Aid is coming from CNN and MSNBC. By bringing up Fox News is just to disourage people from listening to both sides. CNN and MSNBC are just cheerleaders for the right and continue to cover up what they are doing with allowing open borders etc.
Laurel says
Jimbo: “They also are barred from using volunteers with certain felony convictions on elections-related charges, or for crimes such as fraud, forgery, or perjury.”
Who would have a problem with these for laws ?
Um, I dunno, maybe someone with 34 felony convictions?
The Republican. says
The new system that the Republican Party of Florida is recommending is a QR code. You click it on your phone the assist you through the steps. This keeps the 3rd party voter registration person from getting a violation.
Laurel says
The Republican: For starters, there is almost zero evidence of fraud in our elections.
Now, about the QR code. Should the government require everyone who votes have an expensive smart phone to do so? If a person doesn’t have one (some younger generations like the old flip phones, while others are not so tech savvy) then they cannot vote? My Android has the camera with a selection to scan. However, it never works. Instead I have to ignore the scan selection and pick photo to get it to work. Sometimes it leads me to the desired website, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sound like more unnecessary problems to me.
There they go, fixing problems that don’t really exist.
Deborah Coffey says
And thus, doing everything in their power to cause all elections to go their way…because the truth is, they don’t HAVE a majority in this country.
Joe D says
Difficulty reading ENGLISH Jimbo?
The “ non-citizens” were helping people with VOTER REGISTRATION forms….not with mail in absentee ballots. And the Appeals Court has ALREADY RULED that THAT section of the law forbidding non-citizens assisting with voter REGISTRATION is ILLEGAL!
Oh…by the way, if the LEGAL non-Citizen IMMIGRANT has a”Green “ allowing them to work in the USA, and they pass the Civil Service exam…YES, they can HANDLE US mail..
Maybe less time on Fox News will improve your reading skills and FACT checking.,
Wiser One says
Do you even listen to Fox News? It would help dispel your myths.
Laurel says
Wiser: Yes, and Fox Entertainment has no shame, but lots of crap. What to they owe Dominion for lying? Nearly $1,000,000,000,000.00? So, you continue to listen?
I’ve watched PBS since its inception, but became more loyal since 24/7 news commentaries (certainly not journalists) started their treasonous propaganda.
Fox and Friends are probably the dumbest group to come down the pike.
Bob says
When I look at a majority of the replies, I see an anti republican syndrome, a trump derangement syndrome and also an anti fox one. Seems like there’s a lot of hate here. Not very fair and balanced
Wiser One says
They are scared people will actually here the truth on Fox News. So they try and shame people from watching.
Pierre Tristam says
Maybe. Yes. Truth and Fox are like Harry and Sally, Stars and Stripes, Laurel and Hardy, Christ and Mary Magdalen. But just for kicks, can you, Ô wiser one, give us, like—and here I’ll be very generous—one example of one truth you might (might) have heard on Fox in the last six months? Extended to a year if you need it. Just one. Time of broadcast doesn’t count.
feddy says
Pierre,
same can be said about CNN, MSNBC, liberal leaning shows on the major network and social media. Both sides push a narrative that caters to their political views and Flagler live is not immune to this practice. CNN won’t report on things that makes Biden look bad and Fox does the same for Trump, these are not actual reporters writing these stories they are opinion pieces. Go back in time when we did not have instant access multiple news sources, it would be easy to put out false information and manipulate a voting demographic because the sources were limited. Most news was filtered from a select group of white news reporters which then was relayed to the newspapers and on air reporters. Today with instant access anyone can get news on the same stories on multiple sites and do their own research, but many chose not to, they listen to the source that fits their agenda and believes it like gospel, and that’s goes for both Democrats and republicans. You know a story is true when it’s reported on multiple news outlets and the story is the same.
Pierre Tristam says
No. You won’t find election deniers, Covid deniers, climate change deniers, vaccine deniers, election fraud myths, welfare queen stories and the usual litany of made up bunk you see on Fox, the onanist-named network and the like. There’s plenty of tendentious opinion in the left leaning networks. But as far as reporting is concerned, the equivalency you make is part of the same denialist right-wing narrative that reduces all information to opinion, denying fact to its core and exonerating the lies and the networks that spread them. It’s not just false. It’s a dishonest reading of the media landscape.
feddy says
You made my point, you can’t sit there and say that CNN and MSNBC has not done the same to fit the democratic agenda. Both sides do it.
Sherry says
@ feddy. . . FOX was sued for spreading lies and settled that suit for $787 Million dollars. Rupert Murdoch admitted to defaming Dominion:
Murdoch admits Fox News stars endorsed false stolen-election claim. Speaking under oath, Murdoch confirmed the suggestion by a Dominion lawyer that Fox was “trying to straddle the line between spewing conspiracy theories on one hand, yet calling out the fact that they are actually false on the other.” Feb 28, 2023
Please post credible facts that prove CNN and MSNBC has done the same.
feddy says
I never said Fox was righteous and your correct they got sued for their narrative but so did CNN, NBC, ABC and the Washington post for their derogatory statements about Nicholas Sandmann.
Pierre Tristam says
feddy is wrong again. The lawsuit against Gannett, The New York Times, Rolling Stone magazine, ABC News and CBS News was dismissed. (NBC had settled earlier, and should not have.) The cases against those are not comparable to the case against Fox. The difference is malice (as would be, for instance, a commenter’s continued insistence that white is black and black is white despite knowing differently).
Pierre Tristam says
Now you’re just showing reckless disregard for facts. Can’t argue with blinders.
feddy says
Sorry for the typo, Most news was filtered from a select group of white house news reporters.
Sherry says
Certainly FOX spreading multiple lies over and over again about our 2020 election is much more consequential than the Nicholas Sandmann thing. Sandmann also lost some of those lawsuits BTW, and the amount awarded in the settlements may not have been officially disclosed.
Try PolitiFact if you really care about checking out which network spreads conspiracy theories and lies. Or, better yet, switch to the Associated Press/BBC.
Laurel says
Wiser: OMG! The “truth” on Fox Entertainment? Clearly, you are not the one who watches other channels.
People sit and watch Fox all day long, get angry, and blame all their troubles on President Biden. Poor Trump, he’s such a victim!
It’s about ratings, money and control. If you like that sort of thing, go ahead, enjoy.
Sherry says
@bob. . . well you can continue to reject any and all “credible facts” by calling out anyone who uses those facts as anti trump and fox . . . or, you can seek the truth through “fact finding”. Fox and trump have both been found to be habitual liars. Therefore, they are NOT the source for truth!
APNews and BBC are much better sources for “Credible Facts”.
Laurel says
Bob: I agree with you. Trump is deranged!
It is not hate to reject lies.
Sherry says
@ bob and wiser. . . You likely did not see this on FOX, but FOX agreed to a settlement of $787 Million dollars in the Dominion case for “spreading lies” about those voting machines. FOX admitted that they “spread lies”:
Murdoch admits Fox News stars endorsed false stolen-election claim. Speaking under oath, Murdoch confirmed the suggestion by a Dominion lawyer that Fox was “trying to straddle the line between spewing conspiracy theories on one hand, yet calling out the fact that they are actually false on the other.” Feb 28, 2023
Why? Why? Why? Would anyone continue to trust FOX?
Ray W. says
Are you convinced it is hatred? What if it is simply an opposition to a violent form of partisan extremism in the false name of conservatism?
One presidential candidate promised that if he were elected, he would begin “slitting throats” on the first day of his administration. Another candidate promised to “crush vermin.” Later on, he told rally attendees that there would be a “bloodbath” if he were not elected. One of Flagler’s Republican figures took to the radio some three years ago to ask when would it be time to begin “beheading Democrats.”
The commenters you disagree with are not filled with hatred; they are concerned about the future of this country should those who are filled with hatred take political power by force.
As an aside, there can be no fair and balanced point of view here. Either you support calls for murder and expressions of hatred, or you support calls for decency and expressions of respect for the rule of law.
Glenn. says
DeSantis rides again making it harder for people to vote, he is turning Florida into a communistic state, he discriminates, he sets his own rules. Now he is allowing a 34 count felon to vote when he doesn’t allow 1 count felons to vote, as I said he makes up his own rules and this should not be allowed.
Wake up people he should not be in charge of any state let.
don miller says
voter stampeding and round up pressure to a particular party should be penalized. Voters are supposed to be informed and not herded. It effects both parties , so what’s the problem? The problem is that one party– the Dems– specialize and rely on it. Me thinks they protest too much because they are guilty of it..
Nephew Of Uncle Sam says
Didn’t the orange one recently tell his cultists at a rally to Vote By Mail? Or is that just another one of his spout offs, the crowd was eating it up.
Laurel says
Nephew: Nah, it just one of those times like recently when Trump stated “I never said lock her up” about Hillary Clinton. Just whatever works for him at the time. The cult has a very, very short memory span.
feddy says
Laurel I’m not a Trump supporter, I liked somethings he did as president but I am not a loyalist but Biden is just as bad. I have voted for Republicans and democrats in the past because of their ideals and what they could honestly do for the people instead of promising things that they can never achieve because it’s too far-fetched but sounds good to a uneducated voter and both parties and presidential candidates are guilty of this.
Laurel says
feddy: I have yet to hear just how President Biden is “just as bad” as the 34 felonies former President, who has also been found, civilly, guilty of rape. All I hear is “Biden crime family” with no evidence. I hear so many ridiculous, twisted statements, with no evidence. Where are the convictions, other than one common conviction of Biden’s son, who never served in the White House, and is not running for an elected position?
I also remember the absolutely absurd comments about President Obama and his family. God forbid kids learn to eat broccoli! Oh, that bad Michelle!
C’mon, man, you can’t tell the difference?
melly says
Oh. What a terrible, terrible hardship!
“Perret also handed him a slip of paper with her name and her group’s state registration number — an official receipt that is now required by law.”
My goodness, how completely totalitarian of them!
Sherry says
Then there are the constant conspiracy theories from FOX. . . this is just a tiny example from “Media Matters”:
On his radio show, Fox host Sean Hannity said “Democrats” will eventually try to “offer amnesty” to those living in the country without authorization in exchange for votes. “Now amnesty is something of great worth and great value,” Hannity said. “Democrats will be saying to the people that they help break the law with and the people that are offered something of great value to, ‘What, you’re not going to vote for those guys, are you? Because they’re the ones that didn’t want you to come into the country illegally and they’re not the ones voting to make you citizens and give you amnesty and apply for citizenship.’” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 1/9/24]
Later, on his Fox prime-time show, Hannity mused about whether Democrats were “holding out, you know, the carrot of free citizenship” to migrants. Hannity said President Joe Biden was “not even pretending to care about the border” before asking, “What would the Democrats want in exchange for assistance in helping people break our laws, not respect our borders, our sovereignty, and maybe holding out, you know, the carrot of free citizenship?” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/9/24]
The Five co-host Jeanine Pirro: “How many do you need to come into the United States to vote Democrat because they all love Joe Biden?” Pirro continued: “In New York City, they want illegals to vote. And you give them a license, it’s a point of identification that they can then start applying to vote.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/30/24]
When co-host Jessica Tarlov attempted to dispel Pirro’s replacement theory rhetoric, co-host Greg Gutfeld backed Pirro, claiming that Dems have admitted to the conspiracy theory: “Democrats have said that. And they’ve never used the phrase ‘replacement theory,’ but they talk about bringing in new voters and turning Texas from red to purple to blue. So it’s not like a racist thing to say.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/30/24]
Laurel says
Jesse Watters! Now, there’s one dumb SOB!
Sherry says
For those that constantly defend “right winged” media outlets. . . this is just another example of how you are being manipulated:
Video shared by the New York Post on X showed part of a skydiving demonstration in front of several world leaders in Italy that involved several parachutists landing near the group, with each skydiver carrying a flag representing the different G7 countries.
In the full, unedited video, Biden – who was standing with the group of leaders as a parachutist carrying a G7 banner landed in front of them – briefly turned away to give a thumbs-up to several parachutists who had landed behind the group, along with a parachute rigger who was kneeling on the ground to pack up one of the skydiver’s chutes and the French flag.
Other leaders, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron, also briefly look toward that group. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni then walks toward Biden, taps him on the arm, and motions for him to join the other leaders who were being briefed by an Italian Army officer about the demonstration they just watched.
But the video shared by the Post on X cropped out the kneeling parachute rigger, omitting the context of why Biden walked away from the group. “President Biden appeared to wander off at the G7 summit in Italy, with officials needing to pull him back to focus,” the social-media post said.
That claim later became the basis of the Post’s Friday front page, which called Biden the “MEANDER IN CHIEF” and accused the president of embarrassing the US with “confused wanderings.”
Laurel says
Yes, people are being manipulated by these unscrupulous TV shows and social media.
Sometimes I think they are so easily manipulated because they just cannot believe anyone would lie to them so blatantly. Trump is a well known blatant pathological liar, yet so many cling to his words. It’s the only sane explanation.