ion sancho and judith browne-dianis, thank you for your time tonight.st -- i don't care what your party, what your belief -- we must protect the vote.

ion sancho and judith browne-dianis, thank you for your time tonight.st -- i don't care what your party, what your belief -- we must protect the vote. all the voter suppression schemes, we must all be against. i don't care how you vote but i care you have the right to vote. with no games. this is what people gave their lives for. we cannot let it be turned around now. thank you for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now.ç >>> fast, furious and fiction. let's play "hardball." >>> good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start with a shocker. you know the story of how u.s. government agents allowed guns to go to the drug cartel? the story for issa, the nra, and the entire american right? well, according to a new report from "fortune" magazine, not the nation or "the new york times," "fortune," it didn't happen. the u.s. government never used a tactic of letting the guns reach the bad guys in mexico. it just didn't hapn. which raises the bigger question. if it didn't happen why is eric holder and the obama administration fail

thank you, judith brown. is the second most important election of the year after the presidential election. there's so much. le. hmmm. for half the calories plus veggie nutrition. could've had a v8. with less chronic osteoarthritis pain. imagine living your life with less chronic low back pain. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. one non-narcotic pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor right away if your mood worsens, you have unusual changes in mood or behavior or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not approved for children under 18. people taking maois or thioridazine or with uncontrolled glaucoma should not take cymbalta. taking it with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. severe liver problems, some fatal, were reported. signs include abdominal pain and yellowing skin or eyes. tell your doctor

she is judith brown diana appeared my -- judith brown diana. i am -- all the men are laughing. that is another discussion for another day. [laughter] the the bottom line is that it has become more difficult for us because they're people call me hillary and i say that my first name is nicole. they get all confused. judith and i are lawyers. we're lawyers who are knowledgeable about voting rights and voting issues. imagine the 34% of those women who don't have this knowledge and disinformation. -- and this information. when you talk about voters will no longer be able to vote on sunday, i am looking at you all because we all know that many of the people you're presenter the individuals who will be impacted by the exchanges. let me quickly get on to tell you about what can be done, what kinds of things you can do. there are legal challenges going on across the country. the brennan center is involved in some of them. there is a case in south carolina coming in texas -- we are representing, along with some of my colleagues, the league of women voters and florida because florida is o

you know, you don't steal elections by going in as mickey mouse and impersonating judith brown diana. that's not how voter fraud happens. the real voter fraud is changing the rules of the game so that we can't vote. the real voter fraud is the misinformation that they put in our communities before an election so that we won't vote. and so we have got to be prepared. so if you sign up on that e-mail list, we're going to keep you engaged because don't leave it alone in november because in january legislatures come back and they're going to be like a rabid dog, and so we have to be prepared. what i want us also to be prepared for is our members of congress, the thing that we're going to come back for is so pro active legislation. we have got to have some change. and we're not only coming back for pro active legislation, but i'm going to tell you the little visionary thing that we really need and congressman jesse jackson, jr., you know, has been pushing for this for years but will tell you that we to v expolice it write to vote in the constitution. without it we see thee as tax, we seed

. >> joining me now is judith brown.e. >> thank you for having me. >> the bottom line, rick scott says our voters are eligible to vote here. you have the showdown of lawsuits. what is the argument of what he is saying? obviously we have been covering this. this is not the only state. florida is one of many where we have seen democrats and many others describe as very suspicious actions taken right before november. >> it is important to understand this right now is a showdown around democracy issues. what the governor has decided to do is to violate federal law. federal law says you cannot purge people this close before an election. so you have the governor on one side saying he doesn't care what federal law says. then you have the united states government on the other side saying they are going to stand up for the right to vote. it is also important to put this in context. we are talking about what the state is going to do is burdened citizens. they are put citizens on the list. we have 91-year-old world war ii veteran.

. >> i want to bring in judith brown co-advancement project. and there's a legal case here.bout policy case or moral case. there's a legal case here that has been happening in florida, violates the voting rights and act there's a federal judge who agreed with that argument. what was the argument about how that violated the voting rights act. >> well, hi, thanks, chris, for having me. this actually the case that went forward was a case against the law that restricted voter registration drives. and that case basically what florida did was you know, not only were they attempting to put roadblocks in the way of voting and also registering. there was a 48-hour rule. if you did registration, you had to turn in those registrations within 48 hours or they could fine you. and not just the organization you were doing the registration for, but also, the individual person. and so, this really had an impact on registration drives. so groups like the league of women voters, who had been doing voter registration in florida for 75 years. shut down their registration drive. and as ari said,

joining me now judith brown dianis and susan booker. the supervisor of elections for palm beach county, florida. thanks for being here. >> thanks. >> miss booker, let me start with you. will you participate with the governor's plan to go through the voter rolls in your county? >> no, sir. we did not send out the letters out because we felt the information provided to the supervisors was not credibility nor reliable information. >> so you're saying as the supervisor in palm beach county you have not sent out the letters and you do not feel that the list complies with what it needs to and should be required to for you to operate as an official of elections in your county? >> no. the determination, the final determination in florida law lies with the supervisors of elections. prior to us getting ready to send letters out, we discovered some colleagues who did send the letters out, they found a world war ii decorated veteran. they found a lady born in ohio, somebody born in massachusetts. the information is outdated. it came from the divisi

joining me anthea butler, and raul and judith brown and here s is my theory about the lawsuit.iary terrifies me. if you guys take florida to court, is this the end of the voting rights act? >> no, it is not. first of all, we will be filing a lawsuit under the national voter registration act. we have to step back at what is happening here, and florida likes to be the innovators of voter suppression, and they have take page out of the republican voter playbook, and it is not just what has passed in nine states over the past two years, but also the purges. that is how you win the elections and the reason that people should care is because in 2000, it is 537 votes that the e election came to and here is 180,000 potential voters who could be purged and most ly latino, but it impacts the elderly and impacts college students, so, you know, this is a broad play that they are going for, and you know, we are going to fight it, and the d.o.j. is stepping in, and it is great that we are, you know, really anteing up, and the governor has decided to be recalcitrant. >> and i read an article