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Governor Rick Scott, who is being sued by the Federal Government over his efforts to remove what he believes to be illegal voters from the rolls before this years elections, disclosed today that in 2006 he was told he couldn’t vote because he was deceased. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, Scott believes the mistake is proof that legitimate voters will always be able to have their votes counted.

Governor Rick Scott begins most mornings with a calls to talk radio shows. Thursday, he was defending his efforts to remove potential non citizens from the voter rolls, when he dropped this story about when he went to vote in 2006.

“They said I had passed away,” Scott said. “I said, here’s my drivers license, I’m here, I’m really alive. So they allowed me to vote provisionally, and then they went back and checked and saw actually I was alive.”

It was Florida’s Secretary of State using another agency’s database that told the Supervisor of Elections in Naples that Rick Scott was dead.

The Secretary of State sent information to Collier County that showed Richard E. Scott, born 12/1/1952, had died in January ‘06. But the Governor’s middle initial is ‘L”.

Collier County Deputy Elections Supervisor Tim Durham says it is the only time he has seen such a mistake.

“Very unusual set of circumstances,” Durham said. “The other Rick Scott has a different middle initial, he was also a Florida resident, with the exact same date of birth.”

Scott used the story to illustrate his point that voters who are eligible will indeed be able to cast a vote and have it counted, but the American Civil Liberties Unions says there is another lesson to be learned.

“What happened to him shows what is wrong about using inaccurate data to throw people off the voting rolls,” Howard Simon of the Florida ACLU said.

The Secretary of State’s office says it now no longer relies on the Department of Health database.