Gov. Jeb Bush denied Saturday that he ignored the advice of state election officials to ''pull the plug'' on a controversial list the state was using to remove convicted felons from the voter rolls. Florida eventually scrapped the list in July, but only after news organizations, including The Herald, found deep flaws in how the list was put together. The Herald found that people who had their voting rights restored were on the list, while The Sarasota Herald-Tribune found that the list had virtually no Hispanic felons on it. In its Saturday edition, The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that a May e-mail from a Florida Department of Law Enforcement computer expert to his supervisor said that Paul Craft, a top Division of Elections employee, had recommended to Bush that the state scrap the controversial list of 48,000 felons. Craft works under Secretary of State Glenda Hood and was responsible for putting together the list. 'The Gov rejected their suggestion to pull the plug, so they're `going live' with it this weekend,'' Jeff Long wrote in an May 4 e-mail obtained by the newspaper after a public-records request. Bush told The Herald on Saturday that the Herald-Tribune story was wrong. ''It's not true,'' Bush said. "I didn't say it.'' Bush made a similar denial to ABC News in an interview aired yesterday [more
] and [more]- Pictured
above: President Bush on stage with his
brother Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at a campaign rally Saturday, Oct.
16, 2004 in Daytona, Fla [more ] and [more ]
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- ''Today's report that the president's brother personally overruled the objections of state officials and ordered the state to move forward with a flawed felon purge list is the most disturbing evidence yet that the Bush campaign will go to any length to win this election,'' said U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, a Miami Democrat.
- Report: Jeb Bush Ignored Felon List Advice [more ]
- Neas Calls for Justice Department Investigation in Continuing Florida Election Scandals [more ]
- WHERE IS THE INVESTIGATION? Election Criminal Jeb Bush Still At-Large [more]