A Republican candidate for Congress in Florida has walked back an earlier assertion that Puerto Rican hurricane evacuees should not be allowed to register to vote in the mainland United States.
As reported by Politico on Tuesday, Republican congressional candidate John Ward made the remark last week in response to a voter who asked about Puerto Ricans who have moved “either temporarily or permanently” to Florida: “How do you respond to them when they say that they need more help and that the aid to Puerto Rico is not enough?”
“First of all, I don’t think they should be allowed to register to vote,” Ward said. “And it’s not lost on me that, I think, the Democrat Party’s really hoping that they can change the voting registers in a lot of counties and districts. And I don’t think they should be allowed to do that.”
“We should be looking to put the Puerto Ricans back in their homes,” he added, per Politico. “So the idea that they can come to the mainland United States, I don’t necessarily have a problem with that. But I think we should be thinking about it in terms of getting them back home and providing the capital and resources to rebuild Puerto Rico, which I honestly think is where they belong.”
The campaign of a GOP primary opponent of Ward’s, Fred Costello, posted a video of the exchange on Wednesday, Politico noted:
On Friday Ward was asked about the remarks, and he replied that “of course” Puerto Ricans are American citizens who have the right to vote in Florida once establishing permanent residency, per Politico.
But in an email to Politico, Ward maintained that the Democratic Party shouldn’t “be able to take advantage of Puerto Rican evacuees fleeing a natural disaster, here on a temporary basis, in order to manipulate voter registrations rolls in the run up to the 2018 elections.”
“I would welcome any Puerto Rican who wants to permanently resettle in Florida to register to vote here,” he continued. “We’re all American citizens together. That said, if a natural disaster displaced me from Florida to some other state temporarily, I’d still want to vote by absentee in FL, my home community and voter registration, and not elsewhere.”
Read Politico’s report here.
Sounds almost exactly like what the New Hampshire Republicans are saying about how college students with out-of-state families shouldn’t be allowed to vote in the state because they’re not really residents.
Republicans really don’t like brown people…
Well, Republican constitutional scholars strike again. And, that’s not at all how that works…
Well, Jack, maybe if the GOP President had done his fucking job and not treated Puerto Rico like it was just a shithole, those people would have had power and water and food in a timely way and wouldn’t have had to establish residence where you are aw bummer. But there they are, fuckface. Got your résumé updated?
I agree, except that I think it has very little to do with whether or not these people from Puerto Rico are attending college in Florida. (Ixnay on the Spanish-speakers-ay…) In the end, it’s just one more example of Republicans trying to suppress “Democrat” voting. (I really wish these ignorant yahoos would learn to use the proper name of the party, it’s DemocratIC.)