The governor’s office sent a letter to a white supremacist thanking him for sending an anti-Semitic DVD. In the letter the governor promised to share the movie with others. The governor says the thank you letter was an inexcusable mistake by his staff.

Thousands of letters and emails pour into the governor’s office every day… more than half a million in 2008 alone. Governor Charlie Crist can’t read everyone, but his staff tries.

Last month a white supremacist sent Crist a copy of this anti-Semetic DVD. The governor’s staff responded with this thank you letter bearing the governor’s automated signature. Crist is calling the response an inexcusable mistake.

The governor’s office refused our request for an on camera interview to discuss the mistake.

Alia Faraj-Johnson worked as communications director for Governor Jeb Bush, who was Governor Crist’s predecessor. Johnson says it’s hard to keep up every letter and request.

“When I use to work there we would get hundreds of hundreds of pieces of mail, emails, phone calls, so it is very easy to over look something like this.”

But if the governor’s office can mistakenly send a thank you letter to a racist, then who’s to say your letter will be taken seriously.

Mary Smith isn’t sure her letters get read, but she sends them anyway.

“I feel better about it when I do it, I don’t know if they feel better about it because sometimes there’s nasty comments on it but At least they know how I feel, if they look at them, which I hope they do.”

But for many without direct access to their representatives… the odds their letter will be read by their elected official are very slim.

After the mistake was discovered the Governor’s office asked the white supremacist to take the thank you letter off his website. He hasn’t taken the letter down.