[EL] ELB News and Commentary 9/26/17

Mon Sep 25 20:33:21 PDT 2017

“Former Justice Department Lawyers Fire Back on Voting-Rights Reversal They Say Betrays Two Decades of Enforcement”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95010>
Posted on September 25, 2017 8:30 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95010> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Dan Froomkin:<https://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/former-justice-department-lawyers-fire-back-on-voting-rights-reversal-they-say-betrays-two>
The Justice Department’s recent about-face on a voting rights case was such a betrayal of long-standing DOJ policy that a group of former political appointees and career lawyers filed an amicus brief<https://www.dropbox.com/s/m5nstp4r600kwnm/16-980%20bsac%20Eric%20Holder,%20Jr.pdf?dl=0> with the Supreme Court on Friday, citing more than two decades of consistent enforcement of the rule in question – until Trump.
In a possibly unprecedented move, the former Justice lawyers essentially made an argument on behalf of the Department as an institution, representing itself in opposition to its current leadership.
“Amici submit this brief in their individual capacities to provide the Court with the Department’s longstanding view of the Question Presented, the view the current administration has abandoned,” the brief says….
“A lot of folks who had worked at the Department on the NVRA were very upset by the change of course,” said Samuel Bagenstos, a University of Michigan law professor who served as the No. 2 official in the Civil Rights Division for two years during the Obama administration. “And it seemed very notable that there were no career attorneys signed on the brief.”
Bagenstos drafted a response. The 17 signatories include senior Justice Department officials under Obama and Clinton, such as Eric Holder, Tom Perez, and Bill Lann Lee, as well as longtime Civil Rights Division career attorneys James P. Turner, who served from 1965 to 1994, and J. Gerald Hebert, who served from 1973 to 1994.
Former Justice Department officials routinely file amicus briefs, but Bagenstos said he couldn’t recall another example like this one, with such a variety of signatories, and to the Supreme Court.
“I think this is certainly an unusual filing because we think that the Solicitor General’s Office is really betraying a longstanding position of the department,” he said. “It’s not something that’s been batted back and forth by administration after administration.”
Bagenstos said part of the motivation was the filing of a brief filed by the Antonin Scalia Law School Supreme Court Clinic in March entitled “Brief of former attorneys of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice<http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/16-980-tsac-former-attorneys.pdf>.”
Its six signatories included Bradley Schlozman and Hans von Spakovsky. The two men are considered notorious in voting-rights circles for their zealous attempts to establish the existence of non-existent voter fraud and throw people off the voter roles – a practice known to disproportionately affect minority and elderly voters who tend to vote Democratic.
Both were political appointees in the George W. Bush administration’s Civil Rights Division. A DOJ Inspector General’s report<https://oig.justice.gov/special/s0901/final.pdf> found that Schlozman had violated federal law by screening new hires for their political views and lying to Congress about it.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, NVRA (motor voter)<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=33>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

The New Wave of Gerrymandering Scholarship — Part I<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95006>
Posted on September 25, 2017 5:42 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95006> by Nicholas Stephanopoulos<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=12>
A pending Supreme Court case is often the impetus for exciting new scholarship. With the Court about to hear Gill v. Whitford<http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/gill-v-whitford/>, its first partisan gerrymandering case in more than a decade, it’s no surprise that a number of notable articles have recently been written. In this post and in a few more over the coming days, I’ll highlight some of these papers. I’ll summarize their contributions and then explain how they relate to the issues raised in Whitford.
I’ll start today with Eric McGhee’s newest piece<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3007401>, Measuring Efficiency in Redistricting, which is forthcoming in the Election Law Journal. Eric shows algebraically that the efficiency gap—the measure of gerrymandering he developed, and one of several such metrics cited by the Whitford plaintiffs—is usable in just about every electoral context. Whether a state is competitive or dominated by a single party, whether district-level turnout is roughly equal or highly divergent, and whether there are two or more than two parties, the efficiency gap can be calculated and yields meaningful results. This means the measure can be employed not just in competitive two-party states like Wisconsin, but in almost all American jurisdictions.
Eric also probes a number of variants of the efficiency gap that have recently been proposed. For example, the dissenting trial court judge in Whitford suggested<http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/sites/default/files/Whitford%20v.%20Gill%20Opinion.pdf> that “surplus” votes should be tallied relative to the losing candidate’s performance in a district, not the 50%-plus-one threshold that’s necessary for victory. Others have floated the ideas of omitting surplus votes entirely or equalizing the parties’ respective shares (rather than numbers) of wasted votes.
To assess these alternatives, Eric examines how often they violate the “efficiency principle” in redistricting simulations. This principle states that a measure should register an improvement in a party’s position if it wins an additional seat with the same overall votes. The principle captures what many people mean when they refer to gerrymandering: manipulating district lines to seize more seats without earning more votes.
The results of Eric’s simulations are shown below. The x-axis in each chart represents the vote share of the benchmark party. The y-axis indicates the proportion of plans that violate the efficiency principle. The black points assume equal turnout in each district while the gray points permit differential turnout. The five rows correspond to different vote shares for a third party. And the four columns are for (1) the original efficiency gap; (2) the efficiency gap using the Whitford dissenter’s definition of surplus votes; (3) the efficiency gap omitting surplus votes entirely; and (4) the efficiency gap comparing the parties’ shares (not numbers) of wasted votes.
[http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/pic1-2-300x191.png]
It is immediately evident that only the original efficiency gap never violates the efficiency principle. All of the variants run afoul of the principle in at least some electoral contexts. (The Whitford dissenter’s proposal performs particularly poorly, even in the absence of differential turnout or a third party.)
These findings are helpful because they mean there is no reason to proliferate additional versions of the efficiency gap. The original formulation works perfectly well—indeed, better than all of the alternatives that have been offered to date. Scholars, litigants, and courts may therefore rely on a single efficiency gap metric rather than a plethora of further options.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

Maine SOS Matt Dunlap Reads Hate Mail to VICE for Staying on Pence-Kobach Fraud Commission<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95003>
Posted on September 25, 2017 4:50 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95003> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Watch.<https://news.vice.com/story/this-democrat-on-trumps-voter-fraud-commission-wants-to-prove-him-wrong>
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Looks like a Russian-language botnet tried to boost voter fraud claims in Germany”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95001>
Posted on September 25, 2017 4:34 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95001> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Mashable reports<http://mashable.com/2017/09/25/russia-botnet-german-election-twitter/#ze.36nfX0iq7>.
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Posted in chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“Virginia Election Serves As First Test Of U.S. Voting System Security”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94999>
Posted on September 25, 2017 3:50 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94999> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Pam Fessler reports <http://www.npr.org/2017/09/25/553532503/virginia-election-serves-as-first-test-of-u-s-voting-system-security?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social> for NPR.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

Careful New Study Finds at Least Thousands in Two Wisconsin Counties Didn’t Vote Because of Voter ID Requirements, Confusion Over Them<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94997>
Posted on September 25, 2017 3:40 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94997> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Careful new study<https://elections.wisc.edu/news/voter-id-study/Voter-ID-Study-Release.pdf> led by Ken Mayer:
A survey of registered voters in Dane and Milwaukee Counties who did not vote in the 2016 presidential election found that 11.2% of eligible nonvoting registrants were deterred by the Wisconsin’s voter ID law. This corresponds to 16,801 people in the two counties deterred from voting, and could be as high as 23,252 based on the confidence interval around the 11.2% estimate, which is between 7.8% and 15.5%. The survey further found that 6% of nonvoters were prevented from voting because they lacked ID or cited ID as the main reason they did not vote, which corresponds to 9,001 people, and could be as high as 14,101 based on the confidence interval of between 3.5% and 9.4%.
Roughly 80% of registrants who were deterred from voting by the ID law, and 77% of those prevented from voting, cast ballots in the 2012 election.
Based on these estimates, if all of the affected registrants voted the voter ID requirement reduced turnout in the two counties by 2.24 percentage points under the main measure of effect, and by 1.2 percentage points under a conservative measure. If they voted at 2012 rates, voter ID lowered turnout by 0.9 to 1.8 percentage points.

The burdens of voter ID fell disproportionately on low-income and minority populations.  Among low-income registrants (household income under $25,000), 21.1% were deterred, compared to 7.2% for those over $25,000.  Among high-income registrants (over $100,000 household income), 2.7% were deterred.

8.3% of white registrants were deterred, compared to 27.5% of African Americans.
The study, conducted by Principal Investigator Kenneth R. Mayer, Professor of Political Science and Affiliate Faculty of the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs and UW Madison, with Ph.D. candidate Michael  G. DeCrescenzo, was based on the statewide database of registered voters (WisVote), which records whether a registrant cast a ballot in the November presidential election.  The survey was administered by the UW Survey Center, and funded by the Dane County Clerk’s Office.  The data are based on a sample of 288 nonvoting registrants who were on the rolls on or before election day, November 8, 2016.
The survey asked registrants about their reasons for not voting, the types of ID they possess, interest in the election, confidence in the accuracy of the vote count, and demographics. The survey did not ask voters about who they would have voted for or their party identification.
The survey found considerable confusion about the law. Most of the people who said they did not vote because they lacked ID actually possessed a qualifying form of ID.  This confusion may be the result of a lack of effective efforts educating eligible voters of the requirements of the law, and it is consistent with other studies that show many otherwise eligible voters are confused about ID laws.  There were no significant differences between people who had seen information about the voter ID law and those who had not.
“This study provides better data than previous efforts to measure the effects of ID laws, which have largely been based on aggregate turnout, matching registered voters to state driver’s license and ID databases, or looking at the number of rejected provisional ballots cast by voters without an ID” said PI Mayer.  “By asking nonvoters their reasons for not voting, and about what forms of ID they actually possess, we get a better understanding of how voter ID laws affect individuals, and what types of people are most deterred by the laws.  The data show that poor and minority populations are affected the most.”
“The main conclusion of the study is that thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands, of otherwise eligible people were deterred from voting by the ID law,” said Mayer. “The 11.2% figure is actually a lower bound since it does not include people who don’t even register because they lack an ID.  And while the total number affected in Milwaukee and Dane Counties is smaller than the margin of victory in the 2016 presidential election, that is the wrong measure. An eligible voter who cannot vote because of the ID law is disenfranchised, and that in itself is a serious harm to the integrity to the electoral process.”
See also supporting information<https://elections.wisc.edu/news/voter-id-study/Voter-ID-Study-Supporting-Info.pdf> and the FAQ<https://elections.wisc.edu/news/voter-id-study/Voter-ID-Study-FAQ.pdf>.  From the FAQ:
You estimated the number of people in Milwaukee and Dane Counties who were deterred from voting because of Voter ID. Do you know how many people statewide were affected?
No. The sample was drawn from nonvoting registrants in Dane and Milwaukee Counties. The estimate of the effect applies only to the total number of registrants there who were deterred from voting because of Voter ID. The 11.2% figure cannot be directly extrapolated statewide, because we do not know how people outside of Dane or Milwaukee Counties would have answered the questions about their reasons for nonvoting or whether or not they possess a qualifying form of photo ID. The statewide totals outside of Dane and Milwaukee are certain to be greater than zero, but we cannot assume that the effect was the same, 11.2%.
Three brief points:

  1.  These effects seem real and this careful study seems much sounder than the earlier Priorities study<http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/05/10/the_problem_with_the_civis_study_blaming_clinton_s_wisconsin_loss_on_a_voter.html> finding up to 200,000 voters statewide affected by ID (a study Hillary Clinton relies<http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2017/jun/09/hillary-clinton/hillary-clintons-mostly-false-claim-photo-id-voter/> upon in her new biography<http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2017/09/12/hillary-clinton-discusses-wisconsin-loss-herds-book-lands-wisconsin-filled-explanations-her-loss-her/657485001/>).
  2.  It is interesting how much of the deterrent effects from voter id laws comes from confusion and misinformation. That’s a feature, not a bug, and shows that the details of implementation <http://wisconsinlawreview.org/softening-voter-id-laws-through-litigation-is-it-enough/> matter as much as the law itself.
  3.  While turnout effects (and electoral outcomes) interest a lot of folks, I continue to believe that this is not the central question about voter id and similar laws. The question goes to the dignity of each voter and asks why the state should be able to make it harder for people to vote for no good reason (and these laws don’t seem to stop any appreciable amount of fraud).
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, voter id<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=9>

“Russian operatives used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over black political activism and Muslims”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94995>
Posted on September 25, 2017 2:30 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94995> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/russian-operatives-used-facebook-ads-to-exploit-divisions-over-black-political-activism-and-muslims/2017/09/25/4a011242-a21b-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html?utm_term=.e49263cadf54>
The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African-American rights groups including Black Lives Matter and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“Facebook’s Response Isn’t Enough; Congress cannot let Americans remain in the dark about online political advertising.”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94993>
Posted on September 25, 2017 12:05 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94993> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Karen Hobert Flynn oped.<https://www.usnews.com/opinion/op-ed/articles/2017-09-25/congress-must-follow-up-facebooks-exposing-russian-political-advertising>

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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

“The Democratic Party’s nomination process isn’t democratic enough”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94991>
Posted on September 25, 2017 10:38 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94991> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Ron Klain:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-democratic-partys-nomination-process-isnt-democratic-enough/2017/09/25/a56dc232-9f06-11e7-9083-fbfddf6804c2_story.html?utm_term=.1bf6d82d5acb>
That means, first, abolishing caucuses and using only primaries to pick convention delegates. (One exception can be made for the iconic Iowa caucuses.) The selection of a president should not be limited to those voters able to attend a caucus that may be inconvenient and lengthy, and that does not permit absentee or early voting. Caucuses lack the transparency of primaries, intimidate inexperienced voters and discriminate against voters of limited means, who should not have more barriers put in the way of their participation.
They also are an affront to the idea of one person, one vote. On March 5, 2016, just 39,000 caucus-goers in Kansas<https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/primaries/kansas> got to allocate 33 convention delegates; three days later, it took 221,000 voters in Mississippi<https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/primaries/mississippi> to pick 36 delegates. Every 1,200 Kansas caucus-goers were represented by one delegate; it took 6,800 Mississippians to have the same sway. Why? Why did 230,000 caucus-goers in Washington state<http://www.wa-democrats.org/sites/wadems/files/2016%20-%20DNC%20-%20The%202016%20Delegate%20Selection%20Process%20-%20Infographic_0.jpg> get to elect 101 delegates — while 846,000 Maryland primary <https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/primaries/maryland> voters picked 95?
Second, Democratic presidential primaries should not be limited to Democrats only. Independent voters not affiliated with any party should be allowed to vote; only members of other political parties should be barred (allowing Republicans to vote in the Democratic primaries could give rise to great mischief). About half of the primaries and caucuses held by Democrats in 2016 were “closed,” meaning only registered Democrats could participate. What kind of message is sent to independents about Democrats’ desire for their support in the fall by a nomination process displaying a “not welcome” sign in the spring?…
Finally, it is time for the “superdelegates” to lose their convention votes.
I’ve long called for both parties to kill the caucuses<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/02/congress_should_kill_the_republican_and_democratic_state_caucuses_and_mandate_primaries_instead_.html>.
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Posted in political parties<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25>, primaries<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=32>

“Why Facebook Will Struggle to Regulate Political Ads”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94989>
Posted on September 25, 2017 10:31 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94989> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Wired reports.<https://www.wired.com/story/why-facebook-will-struggle-to-regulate-political-ads/>
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“The Case Against Partisan Gerrymandering”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94985>
Posted on September 25, 2017 10:27 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94985> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Nick Stephanopoulos<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/09/the_case_against_partisan_gerrymandering.html> for Slate:
The underlying debate in Whitford, then, has a clear winner and a clear implication. Far from being tangential, party is currently the most important driver of voter and legislator behavior. This fact causes today’s gerrymandering to be both durable and democratically subversive. These characteristics, in turn, cry out for judicial intervention. Without it, in gerrymandered states, the government will persistently flout the public will.
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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

SOS Kobach Gets WaPo Four Pinocchios for Unsupported Claims About New Hampshire Voter Fraud<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94983>
Posted on September 25, 2017 10:24 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94983> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/09/25/kris-kobachs-claim-that-there-is-now-proof-of-voter-fraud-in-new-hampshire/?utm_term=.f9b35490e180>
Kobach claims that there are now “facts” and “proof” that show out-of-state voters took advantage of New Hampshire’s same-day registration provision to commit voter fraud. That is hardly the case.
Kobach says there were 5,313 fraudulent ballots cast by out-of-state voters in New Hampshire. That is not supported by facts. New Hampshire allows temporary residents with out-of-state IDs to vote in the state, as long as they primarily live in the state. It does not necessarily mean these voters committed fraud. The state is investigating 196 people who voted in another state but were on the New Hampshire voter list. Even if all 196 people were confirmed as fraudulent cases, it would not be enough to tip the outcome of either the Senate or the presidential race.
Words like “facts” and “proof” actually mean something — everything, really — to us at The Fact Checker. We award Four Pinocchios.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>

“The Unconstitutionality of the Federal Ban on Noncitizen Voting and Congressionally-Imposed Voter Qualifications”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94981>
Posted on September 25, 2017 10:20 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94981> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Stephen Mortellaro has posted this draft<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3039812> on SSRN (forthcoming Loyola Law Review).  Here is the abstract:
Congress strikes at the core of state sovereignty when it disenfranchises voters. Yet demands for national disenfranchisement laws have become pervasive since the 2016 election, and Congress has a ready model: a federal statute prohibiting noncitizens from voting in federal elections. Despite upending centuries of state control over voter qualifications, this statute remains unchallenged in court and unexamined in academia; its constitutionality has been assumed. This article challenges this assumption, arguing that the federal ban on noncitizen voting—along with every other voter qualification Congress may impose—unconstitutionally infringes state sovereignty.
Most voting rights scholarship focuses on the constitutional amendments that prevent disenfranchisement based on race, sex, wealth, and age. This article demonstrates how the Constitution limits the federal government even further. By tracing the history of the Elections Clause and analyzing contemporary election law jurisprudence, this article shows how Congress’s traditional sources of authority over federal elections do not empower it to impose substantive qualifications on voters. More fundamentally, examination of the text and history of the Voter Qualifications Clauses reveals that states possess an exclusive power to determine who is ineligible to vote. This analysis makes evident that all congressionally-imposed voter qualifications—even those that do not invidiously discriminate—cannot survive the constraints of American federalism.
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Posted in voting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=31>

3d Circuit Rejects ACRU’s Voter Purge Suit in Philadelphia, Saying Suit Threatens Goals of NVRA and Integrity of the Vote<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94979>
Posted on September 25, 2017 10:16 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94979> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Unanimous opinion<http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/163811p.pdf>:
The American Civil Rights Union (“ACRU”) challenges the Philadelphia City Commissioners’ failure to purge the city’s voter rolls of registered voters who are currently incarcerated due to a felony conviction. Because state law prohibits felons from voting while they are in prison, the ACRU argues that the National Voter Registration Act requires the Commissioners to remove them from the voter rolls. For the reasons that follow, we will affirm the District Court’s dismissal of this suit…..
In Pennsylvania, individuals convicted of a felony are citizens who can vote the moment they are released from prison, regardless of probation or parole status. If an individual is purged from the rolls while incarcerated, he or she will be required to reregister after release. Voter registrations take time to process, and the state further imposes a 30-day cutoff before an election, after which new registrants are ineligible to vote in an upcoming election. However, under Pennsylvania law, a previously-registered individual released the morning of November 8, 2016 would be eligible to vote in the election that day. The ACRU’s position would preclude that eligible voter from casting a vote, a result that would clearly contravene Congress’s announced intention of protecting access to the polls and increasing voter turnout.71 Accordingly, we hold that the very thorough and thoughtful opinion of the District Court is clearly correct and entirely in keeping with the “whole law” and the “object and policy” of the NVRA. It is the ACRU’s interpretation of the NVRA, not the Commissioners’, that most threatens the goals of the statute and the integrity of the vote.
(my emphasis)
Footnote 71 reads:
 We also note that during purging efforts, election officials often inadvertently remove voters not convicted of felonies which even more dramatically disenfranchises eligible voters. As Amici Curiae Project Vote and Demos outline in their brief, officials that have undertaken purges in the past have removed hundreds—if not thousands—of registrants who have not been convicted of felonies due to improper matching procedures. Amici Curiae Br. 17–23 (citing Myrna Pérez, Brennan Center for Justice, Voter Purges (2008), http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/publications/Voter.Purges.f.pdf). As a result, registrants such as those with similar names as convicted felons or registrants only convicted of misdemeanors are improperly purged from the rolls, and most do not find out until they are denied a ballot on Election Day. See Pérez, supra at 2–3.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, NVRA (motor voter)<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=33>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

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Rick Hasen
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UC Irvine School of Law
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