Legal voters thrown off rolls; Database woes could be 'sleeper issue of 2008'

[dajoki]

Legal voters thrown off rolls
Database woes could be 'sleeper issue of 2008'
By Richard Wolf
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080102/1a_lede02.art.htm

Five years after passage of a federal law to create electronic registration databases to deter voter fraud, the new technology is posing hurdles that could disenfranchise thousands of legal voters, a USA TODAY examination finds.

From Florida to Washington, voters have been challenged because names or numbers on their registration forms did not exactly match other government databases, such as Social Security and motor vehicle agencies. "We know that eligible people have been thrown off the rolls," says Justin Levitt, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

The databases are only as good as the information fed into them by applicants and election officials. That can lead to human errors as well as variations from state to state. Colorado, for instance, knocked nearly 20% of its voters off the rolls between the 2004 and 2006 elections. Arkansas purged 3%, according to Election Assistance Commission data.

Voters who have problems at the polls can cast "provisional" ballots. Election officials rule later whether those votes were properly cast and should be counted. But even that backup system varies greatly from state to state.

<<snip>>

After Florida's "hanging chads" in 2000 and Ohio's long lines in 2004, registration problems "could be the sleeper issue of 2008," says Doug Chapin of electionline.org, which tracks voting issues. "These new databases make it possible to make more mistakes faster," he says.

[PoiBoy]

1. One small step...

towards combating this crap is outlined in this article:

http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2007/12/voter_caging_reprehensible_une.html

<snip>
If you've made it this far down this post, you are probably wondering how we can combat this effort. No matter what party you belong to - I do hope that the whole idea of vote caging is offensive to you - and that you want to do something to combat it.

How can we keep authentic voters from being caged and prevented from voting?

Quite simply, we can get out and register voters.

Regardless of your party affiliation, you should make sure that your registration is up-to-date.

We can all take action by encouraging "already registered" voters to register again, whether they need to re-register or not. There is no harm whatsoever in having people register more than once, it only verifies their registration. If anybody has moved since the last time they voted, they need to re-register anyway. If they've changed their name, they need to re-register. If they've not voted in a few elections, they should re-register just to make sure they haven't been caged or kicked off the rolls.

There is no harm in re-registering. Everybody should get everybody else to register to vote!
<end>


BTW, there's an excellent thread here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2566856

[dajoki]

2. Thank you for that...

re-registering, I never would have thought of that.

[bananas]

3. How did that get on page 1A?