DOJ sues Florida over purging of voters

>> in now a congressman who is key in one of those battleground states , the great state of florida , congressman, good morning, how are you?

>> i'm great, chris , how are you today?

>> terrific, and i want to ask you, i'm sorry, ted deutsche, about this voter purnlg ige issue. this is key in the battle. yesterday the department of justice followed a lawsuit against the state's plan to remove voters from the voter rolls. the state has sent letters to 2,600 people asking them to verify their eligibility. how important is this fight in the overall context of this campaign?

>> it's incredibly important, chris . as you point out i come from florida . everyone is aware of what happens in florida as we head into an election season and the bar is set very high in this state for the governor to uphold the integrity of our elections. the governor, his secretary of state, his division of elections has a responsibility to the citizens of our state to make sure that people's rights to vote aren't trampled upon and he's failing that test. the last thing people want when it comes to upholding the integrity is ranking competence and political partisanship. that's the way we're seeing in the way the purge is coming out. fortunately the department of justice , it's sad to say it required the department of justice to come in to florida to uphold the rights of floridians. fortunately they're doing it. it's the right thing to do. the governor's violating the law in this purge and the department of justice is going to make him stop.

>> i'm sure you know florida officials have said they have evidence that suggests actual voter fraud , they've said about 100 citizens have been removed from the voter rolls. what do you say to that?

>> i think that those, anyone who has been identified who shouldn't be on the rolls should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. it's a felony to commit voter fraud . what's been lost by this governor, what he's not paying attention to, and what he's totally disregarding is the fact that there are tens of thousands of eligible voters, eligible u.s. citizens who are at risk because of his purge of being cast off of the voter rolls. i'm concerned about not, i'm not concerned about a mass conspiracy for non- u.s. citizens to vote. there's no evidence of that. we ought to, on a regular basis, make sure the voter rolls are clear. what i am concerned about is this effort that seems to be taking place on a mass scale, not just 2,600 but remember, chris , there are 182,000 names on this list, many of them world war ii veterans like the one that i met a couple weeks back, small business owners, u.s. citizens who are being told that they will lose their right to vote because they're on this list. the reason the federal law says you can't do this so close to an election is because there's no time for u.s. citizens to challenge what they're being told. that's why this is so important. that's why it has to stop.

>> and obviously this is very close race in florida , a couple of recent polls, one has mitt romney in the lead, the other has president obama in the lead. i wonder if you're among the democrats who are worried right now about what you see out of the obama campaign and its path to victory?

>> listen, i live in a state where the message is going to be very clear, it's the discussion i had just yesterday at a town hall meeting . people ask the difference between the president and governor romney, and in a room full of seniors, which is where i was yesterday, i made it clear to them that we have, even as we have an administration that's standing up for the middle class we also have an administration that's standing up for seniors against efforts by governor romney and paul ryan and others and republicans in congress who want to privatize medicare, turn it into a voucher system, all in order to preserve tax cuts for the wealthiest americans and corporate giveaways, i think the choice is going to be very clear and i think that the people of florida especially understand what's at stake in this election.

>> let me ask you quickly, because ruth marcus brought this up, a lot of attention is given to the "democracy corps" memo, basically it said that the campaign message by the obama team, sort of stresses the fragile nature of the recovery isn't working, it seems out of the touch with the economic pain voters are feeling out there. do you think that memo is right?

>> what i think is right is that there are people who, and we see it every day, people who know that as much as we've done to move the country forward, there is more to be done, and then they're going to look and try to figure out if the best way to do that is to continue down a path that has led to the creation of over 4 million new jobs, a path which has finally stood up for working families and for the middle class , where or they want to go back to a failed policy that took us to the brink of economic disaster . i think the choice will be clear and there will be lots of discussion along the way, reports and polls own other things that are done. at the end of the day people have that choice to make and i think the choice also be clear.

>> congressman ted deutch , thank you very much.

>> thank you.