Voter Registration at Center of Controversies

Despite the "hanging chad" controversy of the presidential election in 2000-and the fact that the Supreme Court, not the voters, decided the outcome of that election-little has been done in the way of election reform. Currently there are concerns that the majority of states have failed in the area of voter registration, and some states' actions to purge their voter rolls may be illegal. Both of these concerns have the potential to affect the outcome of yet another presidential election.

Poor Access to Voter Registration for Low-Income Adults

Mandates to the contrary, many states have failed to put into place the requirement that state agencies make available the right to register to vote at their facilities; Virginia, Missouri, Michigan and North Carolina are notable exceptions. This is not a new law; it has been in effect since 1993 and known generally as the "motor-voter" law. This law was put into effect to increase low-income people to register to vote by making the registration process more readily available, such as in state welfare agencies.

Two non-partisan voter advocacy research groups, Project Vote and Demos recently released a report that stated, "The ongoing failure has led to a nearly 80 percent drop-off in registering low-income applicants at state social services agencies over a decade" (http://www.alternet.org/story/93180/). 40 percent of adults in households with annual income less than $25,000 remain unregistered, compared to 20 percent from those households with annual incomes more than $100,000.

Further, minority citizens are less represented than white citizens in registration numbers; 10 percent for blacks and nearly 20 percent for Hispanics and Asian-Americans (http://www.alternet.org/story/ 93180/).

Voter Rolls Purged in Six Swing States

As reported by The New York Times, "tens of thousands of eligible voters" in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Colorado, Nevada and North Carolina have been removed from the lists of registered voters (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09 voting.html). Moreover, the legality of the procedures by which such purges have been executed is being called into question.

While there is no evidence of partisanship being an issue in eliminating the names from the rolls, it is thought that because the Democratic party has been more aggressive at registering new voters for the upcoming election, increased screening of new applicants could disproportionately affect that party.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 has had all the states working to trim their registered voters rolls of people who have died, notified authorities they have moved, or became ineligible for another reason. The Times reports that records reveal that "for every voter added to the rolls in the past two months in some states, election officials have removed two" (www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09).

The federal laws in question are twofold: in Michigan and Colorado, voters are being removed from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election (which is only allowed when voters die, notify authorities they have moved out of state, or have been declared unfit to vote) and in Indiana, Ohio, Nevada and North Carolina it appears the states are inappropriately using data from Social Security to verify registration information of new applicants.

The Help AmericaVote Act of 2002 allows states to use Social Security data for such purposes, but only after the state had exhausted all other means to verify applicant information.

Officials from each of the six states are denying that any illegality or impropriety exists in their voter registration verification procedures or in removal of names from the list of eligible voters.