Purging the Rolls
Via Ta-Nehisi Coates, it looks like we’re seeing some more of the only kind of voter fraud that there’s ever any evidence occurs in substantial numbers — illegal efforts to prevent people from voting:
The six swing states seem to be in violation of federal law in two ways. Michigan and Colorado are removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election, which is not allowed except when voters die, notify the authorities that they have moved out of state, or have been declared unfit to vote.
Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio seem to be improperly using Social Security data to verify registration applications for new voters.
In addition to the six swing states, three more states appear to be violating federal law. Alabama and Georgia seem to be improperly using Social Security information to screen registration applications from new voters. And Louisiana appears to have removed thousands of voters after the federal deadline for taking such action.
Every fall you see these kind of stories, plus stories about registration drives, plus stories about allegations of fraud, etc. It’s worth recalling that it’s nowhere written in the heavens that a country must use such a hodge-podge system of conducting elections. It would make a lot more sense to have a uniform national system for these procedural issues, complete with some kind of national database of who’s registered where. Under the existing system I was, at one point, simultaneously registered to vote in two states and one “District” completely by mistake.
40 Responses to “Purging the Rolls”
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October 9th, 2008 at 10:13 am
It’s not written in the heavens, but it’s written in the Bill of Rights. Voting rules and procedures are not delegated to the federal government in the Constitution, and thus, under the Tenth Amendment, they are reserved to the states. The Voting Rights Act dented this reservation, on the grounds that discriminatory voter-registration procedures by the states violated Fourteenth Amendment rights; but states retain control over voter rolls. Changing that would require a constitutional amendment, and no such amendment stands a chance of ratification.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:20 am
There have been stories about voter caging and problems with voter registration all fall. What took you so long, Matt?
October 9th, 2008 at 10:22 am
The NYT article is unclear about why this is happening in Michigan. Is it Republican counties? I cannot see why Democrats would do this…ah, the Michigan Secretary of State is a Republican: Terri Lynn Land.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:33 am
states retain control over voter rolls.
And the SSA retains control over its database.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:38 am
More to the point than the 10th Amendment, Article I s. 4 reserves to the state legislatures the right to prescribe the manner of elections for Senators and Representatives and Article II s. 1 does the same for the method of appointing electors to the electoral college.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:40 am
To amplify what allbetsareoff said:
1) The definition of who may vote is defined in the Constitution but it is largely in the main section –not the Bill of Rights.
a) Who may vote for Representatives:
“The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” — Article 1, Section 2
b) Originally the Senators were chosen by the State Legislatures, NOT by the common voters. (Article 1, Section
3) That was changed with Amendment 17:
“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.”
4) The President is chosen by STATE-APPOINTED ELECTORS. HOW those Electors are selected is left up to the states:
Article 2 Section 1
” Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.”
October 9th, 2008 at 10:40 am
One other thing: if states get to maintain the voter rolls, they should actually maintain the voter rolls — as in ‘actively registering people’. The idea of the ‘voter registration drive’ to is frankly staggering to anyone from outside the US. (See how Canada does it.) For all the wingnut whines about ACORN, it’s a travesty that third parties need to be doing this in the first place. It’s one of the first duties of a democratic government.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:44 am
The IMPORTANT POINT is that the US Constitution does NOT guarantee any US Citizen the right to vote.
State Legislatives could restrict the vote to those who have more than $5 Million in net worth. Could also decide that they, not the voters, would appoint the Presidential Electors.
The Founders didn’t design the US COnstitution to creat a Democracy. They designed it to create a corrupt Oligarchy.
If you don’t believe me, look at the cumulative result of 230 years of its rule: the distribution of income, wealth, and –yes– political power within the US population.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:46 am
While all that is said above is true about the fact that the Constitution reserves to the states the power to define who’s a qualified voter, Congress has shown itself to be a little more creative than that. First, as noted, there is the 14th Amendment and its enforcement power; it takes little imagination to determine that the current hodge-podge of voting procedures violates Equal Protection principles, thus enabling the Congress to act to prevent such violations. (Whether this Supreme Court would uphold that is an interesting question, but it’s hardly a foregone conclusion that they would not.) Second, Congress has the power of the federal purse and can offer up all kinds of financial carrots — or sticks — to get the States in line.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:47 am
DP beat me to it. Sorry for the duplicate info–his post went up while i was checking the Constitution and typing mine.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Re Glenn’s comment “Second, Congress has the power of the federal purse and can offer up all kinds of financial carrots — or sticks — to get the States in line.”
———–
Last time I checked, that crowbar has been used more often to fuck the common citizen and further enrich the rich than it has been to defend the rights of man.
Blacks were freed not because of Northern morality but because Northern industrial interests didn’t want Southern legislatures fucking with the Railroads or Big Steel.
Women’s rights were supported more by corporations wanting cheap labor and lower wages than by humanitarians. The end result is that US mothers have to drop their crying babies off at child care in the mornings and go slave all day –because most American families can no longer live on the earnings of a single wageearner. The children are fucked –because they don’t write $200,000 campaign donation checks.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Hey, I’m not necessarily disagreeing. I only meant to point out that the electoral qualification provisions in the Constitution are not the last word.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:04 am
I know that compromise was essential to getting the Constitution ratified, but think that giving the states the right to oversee national elections was very short-sighted. It is ridiculous that the fate of the entire nation so often rests on the yahoo’s in one state or another and their specific election laws (who can forget Katherine Harris and the “hurricane” clause in Florida). At the very least, there should be a standardized process for electing the president/vp. I know, I know–it would be a logistical nightmare at this point, but our current system just encourages these voter suppression tactics in swing states and it really is time to try something different.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Of course, each house of Congress is the sole judge of the qualifications of its members, and could, in principle, refuse to seat any member elected from a state that failed to institute appropriate voting standards. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?
October 9th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Hmmm…my comment got truncated.
I was just going to say that the original business about states setting qualifications was one of the uglier deals that had to be cut to get the Constitution ratified (imagine the consternation in Virginia that –gasp– Negroes might be allowed to vote!), and the history of Constitutional Amendments has been, in no small part, the shaving away of the States’ prerogatives in this area.
The single most surprising thing to me about the last 8 years is that the catastrophe in Florida, in which the machinery of our Republic failed, has not led to genuine reform of the system. Perhaps that needs to wait for the White House to change hands again.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Anybody else catch former Sen. John Danforth bloviating about the ACORN fiasco on Fox News yesterday? According to him, “voter fraud” is so “widespread” that it’s uncontainable and may cast into doubt the electoral victory in November! So there you have it, from the man who brought us Clarence Thomas. What a world-class, fake-class-act asshole!
October 9th, 2008 at 11:53 am
We need only look across our border for a reasonable institution that works: Elections Canada. It is a federal agency that overseas the implementation of national election standards, monitors elections at the provincial and national level, and oh yeah, makes sure all the parties are obeying the law. They’re famously non-partisan, raiding Tory offices during Harper’s minority government and investigating Liberal malfeasance when they were still in charge.
If we only gave the Federal Elections Commission some comparable teeth, the state of American democracy would be immeasurably better off.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:53 am
The states also have the right to how their electors are selected, but Bush v Gore removed that from the Constitution without an amendment.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
the solution to this problem is the same as the solution to a bunch of other stuff:
National ID card.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
If we just kept Florida from voting, that would solve a lot of problems. They just don’t seem to be too good at it.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
ah, but you assume that there isn’t a need and a long-agreed upon desire for the ability to manipulate election results. of course we could have a standard national system! Iraq, Venezuala, eastern bloc nations all do. the reason we don’t have one is that the powers that be do not want one. they are very afraid of such a thing. that’s why we have the damn electoral college in the first place! to keep the rabble from voting one of their own into office.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I’ve said this every election cycle I’ve lived here, but here in Oregon, voting by mail is a wonderful thing. It seems as if most of the fraud occurs by harassment at the polling places, etc.
Here, you get your ballot in the mail. As long as you register legally, etc., I can’t see how voting suppressers can get around messing with people’s mail (a FEDERAL OFFENSE). There are no real laws against voter suppression.
Here’s a list of the positives from the below link:
“The advantages of conducting elections entirely by mail are clear:
Voter participation: It increases turnout — 84 percent of registered Oregonians voted this year.
Convenience: People can vote according to their schedule.
Education: People have time to study issues and candidates before voting.
Fraud protection: It has built-in safeguards that increase the integrity of the elections process.
Built-in paper trail.
Voter eligibility: Built-in time to resolve disputes.
Actual results are released when polls close as opposed to unreliable “exit polls.”
Financial: It saves money.”
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/200682_oregonvote23.html
October 9th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
As I keep saying: The United States is a Republic, not a Democracy. It’s like a Democracy, but Corruption rates are a lot higher, it’s easier to keep troops overseas, the government’s less vulnerable to public dissatisfaction, and they haven’t discovered Recycling yet.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I think that’s what this is really all about. The far right is doing all it can to call a potential (I won’t say anythhing for certain; I’m too superstitious.) Obama victory into question. If they can’t win, they’ll just attack his legitimacy in order to try to cripple his ability to govern. Still, as disgusting as all of this is, I think Obama’s legal team is too well prepared for all of this. Just as importantly, I think too many swing states are too close in the polls to make this an effective tactic. Turnout’s gonna be higher than it has in decades and the Republicans attempts to stem that are only gonna wind up blowing up in their faces. Their attempts at disenfranchisement won’t yet consign them to permanent minority part status, but it’s strong step in that direction.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
here in Oregon, voting by mail is a wonderful thing.
I know that Oregonians like vote-by-mail, and so does the Great Orange Satan, but I have my doubts. Too easy to create conditions where votes can be coerced: imagine a situation where a member of the clergy or employer or head of the household asks to see a stack of votes before the envelope is sealed and they get sent off. That’s not been found in Oregon, but it’s also hard to detect unless the coerced voters tip off the authorities. (There is no modern history of polling-place fraud in the UK, but all sorts of dubious shit followed the introduction of postal-only ballots for local elections.)
But there’s a simple cost/benefit analysis here. Voting illegally is a felony. It usually happens in public, under scrutiny. It adds one vote to the total. Suppressing the vote is hard to detect, hard to prosecute, happens behind the scenes, and removes many votes from the total.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I am open to the idea of voting by mail, but what about the fact that votes can be submitted so far in advance of election day? I don’t know if that’s a problem or not.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
imagine a situation where a member of the clergy or employer or head of the household asks to see a stack of votes before the envelope is sealed and they get sent off. That’s not been found in Oregon, but it’s also hard to detect unless the coerced voters tip off the authorities.
I’m not saying that can’t happen, but think about the work you’d have to do to do that on a large scale. Voter suppression happens when people do not vote. When everyone has to show up at the same place, it’s easier to accomplish this task through different means (threats, etc.).
We do get the ballots early, along with a catalogue of each candidate in our district and whatever ballot measures are included. I then take my sweet time making the tougher decisions. Now, unless someone breaks into my house or steals my mail (federal offense) and then can forge my signature (you have to sign the ballot), it’s pretty safe. And there’s a instant paper copy.
It’s not fool-proof, but it would be a real pain in the ass to mess with…
October 9th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
My own proposal: the states should be allowed (indeed encouraged) to do a mass purging of voting rolls only during a six month period immediately following a national election every two years. Anyone who had not voted in a given jurisdiction for the last two elections would be stricken from the rolls. And sent a letter to their last known address informing them of that fact. At other times voters should be purged from the rolls only on an individual basis upon receipt of hard evidence that the voter had died, become incapitated in a manner that precluded voting, or had moved.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Re: The United States is a Republic, not a Democracy.
Those are not exclusive categories. The US is both a Republic and a democracy. Meanwhile there are democracies that are not Republics (Canada, Sweden, the UK, Japan and many others are monarchies); and republics which are profoundly undemocratic (North Korea, Burma etc.)
October 10th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I’m a little late to the thread, but you should be automatically registered to vote at the address listed on your income tax form, each year when you file your taxes.
Anyone who doesn’t file taxes can register by showing up at any office and presenting the usual forms of ID with proof of address. You can do this at any state or federal office you are using anyway, even the DMV, up to one week before election day. Registration is valid for two years.
Registration would also be automatic for anyone in the military, at the address listed on their 2-1 Form. However, the address on the income tax form would take priority.
Yes, this means fewer poor people would register, but philosophically I’m OK with the idea that it should be a little harder to vote if you don’t pay taxes, or contribute military service, as long as every citizen still has the right. This would still make registration easier for just about everyone than the current system.
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