Subject: [EL] Federal Postcard Application and race
From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall
Date: 5/3/2011, 9:44 AM
To: Election Law

Greetings all,

Does anyone have pointers as to why the Federal Post Card Application
for registering UOCAVA voters asks the voter to list their race? In a
recent request for public comment, FVAP said:

"This information is desired by a few States to assist them in
reporting information to the Department of Justice and, in some cases,
to determine the eligibility of the citizen to vote in restricted
elections."

http://www.fvap.gov/resources/media/fpca-fwabpubliccommentpacketfinal.pdf

I can understand wanting to report voter demographics to DOJ, but are
there really election contests that one can't vote in if they're not
registered as being of a specific race? and I guess the race/ethnicity
distinction doesn't matter here?

best, Joe

-- Joseph Lorenzo Hall ACCURATE Postdoctoral Research Associate UC Berkeley School of Information Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy http://josephhall.org/ _______________________________________________ election-law mailing list election-law@mailman.lls.edu http://mailman.lls.edu/mailman/listinfo/election-law