he's state representative dennis baxley. i asked him what voting fraud prompted the need for this new law. inch i don't think we want to wait. we've reviewed the process, we're going to have very close elections in florida. >> what? i tried it again. >> for credibility in the election we have to have credibility results in the election. >> okay. so voting fraud was not a problem. now we're getting somewhere. in fact, there were 31 cases of alleged voting fraud in three years in florida. more than 18 million votes were cast in that period. that's 0.0002%. he did try to use one example to claim a larger problem. >> did you know mickey mouse registered to vote last time? >> really? sorry. that absurd claim has already been checked out. the verdict -- false. >> orange county election officials rejected the application, so mickey was never officially registered to vote. so, mr. baxley, the only thing mickey mouse was, was your argument, and if that was your argument, it was a very poor one. but baxley's worst moment came when i a

baxley? >> we want people to participate in the total process.the election information, all the advocacy issues that are going to be on the ballot, so you know what you're doing when you go to the polls. then you vote where you're registered and you're fine. in database, all out in the rural districts, you don't have computer access at every polling location. >>> how does stopping people from leaving churches and going with souls to the polls led by their congregations, how does that do that? >> we have not cut early voting by one hour. >> no, you changed the dates. >> i had requests from both sides of the aisle. >> did you stop sunday voting. >> -- that asked me to compact that so that they were full days. >> did you stop sunday voting after church? >> there needs to be a break. people want to be off on sunday. a lot of our people go to church. why make all those poll workers work? >> and a lot of those churches were bringing souls to the polls. all of a sudden that is eliminated. >> everyone can vote -- >> you limbsh -- you and i xwoth know tho

baxley, you're trying to take all of you to disney world on a ride. they are the mr., it had no content, and it always got me messed up. >>> you're the one that said that we must stop and put uncle sam on a diet, yet you want to give a hedge fund guys a chocolate sunday with bananas, whipped korean and cherries on top. >> a fish wouldn't get caught if he kept his mouth shot, and it's not about obama, it's about your mama. >> i'm thinking of painting blueberries on the board of some republicans. >> leave the blueberry pie alone. somebody get the washing machine ready. we're about to have a mess. >> blueberry pie, chocolate sundaes, that award is a crowd pleaser. >>> that leads me to the alfred c. sharpton blueberry pie lifetime achievement award. at 2011 draws to a close, we look around and ask ourselves who has the most blueberry pie on his face? with all the blueberry pie that was thrown around this year, it was a tough decision, but there was only one man who could walk away. >> as i look back on iraq, i think it was the right thing to do. >> a lot of the work we di

florida state representative dennis baxley who sponsored a voting measure, signed into law by governorolitico" he is offended accusations are hurled by the naacp. here's what he said on msnbc earlier. >> it's going to be a better system, and we have a very successful system. >> i'm joined now by ben jealous, president and ceo of the naacp. ben, welcome to the show. >> thank you. >> going to be better? i mean, by what stretch of the imagination can one imagine that this update on kind of poll tax and literacy tests to determine the legitimacy of black citizenship is anything but what it does, which is wreak of tremendous racism? >> what else would he say? you know, when the league of women voters says we're no longer going to do voter registration in florida, because your rules are too onerous, something's wrong. the league of women voters is like mom and apple pie. it is mom and apple pie. and they have literally -- that man has run them out of the state with his laws. you know, that's what we're dealing with. >> well, you know, obviously the 2008 presidential election had the most div

. >> the reverend al sharpton getting into it with florida congressman dennis baxley over voter fraudthere so many voter i.d. and restriction laws out to fix it? >> well, in my judgment and the judgment of many people in the civil rights community that are gathering in 25 cities tonight with jobs and justice rallies and tomorrow we're marching in new york, we feel that it is to suppress the vote. the only results from these laws will be to suppress voters that are young, that are older, that are minorities. and the man that you just played was on my show who's a state legislator in florida. couldn't explain why we're doing. this in his state in the last three years there's only been 31 cases of voter fraud. so it's not a problem that we have to solve. it's a solution they're trying to find a problem. >> that kind of voter fraud that we're talk about is almost never the kind of voter fraud that would be prevented by having voter i.d.'s. the brennan sent for justice has been some great work on this. they have a statistic in ohio in the elections in 2000 and 2004, there were four instanc

. >> representative baxley, we'll be dealing a lot with this. i hope you and your legislators understand we're not going backwards in time. we're not counting bubbles on a soap no more. >> no, we're moving forward. >> you've got that right. >> we're excited about the upcoming election. >> we are, too. that's why you're not going to let us interfere with you're vote. >>> thank you for watching. >>> thank you for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. >>> the newt salute. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews out in chicago. leading off tonight, is gingrich for real? we've got incredible new poll numbers from "time" magazine that show he's not just a power in iowa. he could be mitt romney's undoing in south carolina and florida as well. could gingrich slingshot out of iowa straight to the nomination? then with just 27 days to go until the iowa caucuses, less than four weeks, mitt romney is turning up the volume on his campaign, but he did turn it up but perhaps too high today and too obvious. for example, speakin