The Staton Jones Report

The New York Times is reporting that the GOP is going to ease off the "felon voter list" it used so sucessfully in Florida in 2000 to keep likely Democratic voters from exercising their francise rights (in simple terms: keeping the blacks from voting) because this time it will cost them Hispanic votes. So, like the recent revelation that Bush has been putting the pressure on Pakistan to produce Usama bin Laden before the Democratic Covention opens in Boston at the end of the month, the GOP is finally doing the right thing for the completely selfish and (in some cases) too late reasons.

Gov. Jeb Bush said that not including Hispanic felons on the list "was an oversight and a mistake." He added, "We accept responsibility, and that's why we're pulling it back."

Governor Bush said the mistake occurred because two databases that were merged to form the disputed list were incompatible.

When voters register in Florida, they can identify themselves as Hispanic. But the felons database has no Hispanic category, which excluded many people from the list.

The article pointed out that less than 70 Hispanic felons were identified in the combined databases, effectively missing all but a handful.