[EL] On the other hand - voter file purges

[George Korbel]

That seems to be true today but Up until  the 1980s and early 1990s it was  was the Dems in Texas that were doing it.   The GOP was friendly.  The first republican governor Bill Clements supported the 1982 extension of the VRA   His Director of Elections testified in favor of it.  But those days are gone.

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From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on behalf of larrylevine at earthlink.net <larrylevine at earthlink.net>
Sent: Saturday, December 14, 2019 4:38:28 PM
To: 'Election Law Listserv' <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: [EL] On the other hand - voter file purges


Ever notice the move to remove voters from the rolls or restrict the ability of certain people to vote always comes from Republicans as with this case in Wisconsin? (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/elections-2020/judge-orders-234000-purged-from-wisconsin-voter-rolls/ar-AAK6RkZ?ocid=spartandhp)  On the other hand, I served on the Los Angeles City Commission on Election Reform in 2014. Our charge was to investigate ways to increase turnout in municipal elections. I served on the research committee, which interviewed 22 elections officials and academics across the country to see what had been tried and the results of things like two-day voting, weekend voting, same-day registration, all mail ballots, etc. My research turned up the fact that at that time 22.4% of the people registered to vote in the City of Los Angeles had not voted in any election in 20 years or more. Political Data Inc., a private vendor that manages voter files for almost ever major consultant in the state, showed 8% or the registered voters were verifiably dead. I called these non-voters “deadwood” on the file. The representative of one of the “reform” organizations lit into me. She said, “You can’t call them deadwood. People have a right to not vote.” Remember, these people has missed every election, including the two Obama elections, for 20 years or more. We asked the Registrar of Voters why there was no process to remove those voters from the file as continuing to carry them was costing the county money. The answer was that the Voting Rights Act restricted such action. There are any number of ways to verify that those non-voters are no longer properly registered and should be purged.

Larry


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