VOTES AT RISK: GOP Purging Voter Rolls - 1 in 4 to be deleted

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

VERY BAD NEWS: 1 in 4 Indiana Voter Records may be Inaccurate
More bad news, and while I visited the Indiana SOS website,
could not find anywhere for voters to verify their registration status.
In NC, we have been able to look up our registration for a year or two.

August 1, 2006
GOP purging voter rolls
Election Board approves the action despite objections from Democrats

Republicans may continue purging names from the Marion County voter rolls despite Democrats' concerns that some voters could be disenfranchised.

In an emergency meeting Monday, the Marion County Election Board sided with Republicans, who were concerned about potential voter fraud due to people registered in more than one location and deceased voters who were never taken off the books.

The Election Board voted 2-1 in favor of allowing Republicans to continue purging names.

The controversy began Friday when Republicans started removing the names of voters they thought were ineligible. The names came from a list supplied by a vendor contracted by the secretary of state's office that indicated about 36,000 Marion County voter registrations were questionable. Republicans were certain that about 4,500 of those names should be purged immediately. Purging of additional names also is being considered.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060801/NEWS02/608010415/1008

The Indiana Democratic Party needs to re-register those wrongly removed, and quickly!

For Immediate Release: Contact: AJ Feeney-Ruiz
August 1, 2006 317.233.8655

Statewide Mailer Identifies 1 in 4 Indiana Voter Records may be Inaccurate

Indianapolis, IN - Today, Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita announced that the state's mailer designed to identify and remove inaccurate voter records has identified more than one million records that may be inaccurate,affirming that the state's voter rolls are seriously inflated. The state has sent a follow-up mailer to the addresses on those records requesting confirmation that the voter no longer lives at that location, in accordance with federal law.

In an effort to clean up the inaccuracies on the state's voter list, Indiana's Election Division sent more than 4.3 million postcards to the addresses listed on every Indiana voter record. The mailing was designed to automatically return-to-sender all registrations that are no longer accurate. While initial estimates were that 675,000 postcards would be returned to the state, the final number posted by the July 21 deadline coming to 1,018,008. Undeliverable postcards continue to roll in after the deadline, with more than 70,000 additional cards collected to-date. Unfortunately, due to delays in getting one of the state's two major political parties to sign off on the cleanup plan, the additional postcard records cannot be removed until 2010.
http://www.in.gov/sos/press/2006/08012006.html

*** IF you have been purged, the deadline to register to vote in the General Election is October 10, 2006***

290,522
Potential duplicates identified by SVRS*
* This number is the result of preliminary tests checking voter files against the following criteria:
First Name, Last Name, DOB; Drivers License Number; Social Security Number (SSN); and DOB and last four digits of SSN.
Based on this data, a percentage probability of being a duplicate is applied to the registration, and all records with a probability of greater than 50% are flagged for review as a "potential duplicate."

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28,845
Potential matches of deceased voters identified by SVRS*
* Based on a review of a 10 year backlog of 656,512 deceased Hoosiers is currently being reviewed and readied to match voter records on SVRS to identify records for deceased voters. Since February 9, 2006, 7,435 potential deceased voters have been identified with 55% of reviewed records cancelled thus far.

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4,359,537
Current Indiana voters on SVRS*
* 3,907,824 of these records are for active voters while 451,713 have been flagged as inactive (voters failing to vote in at least the last two general elections).

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6,929
Incarcerated voters identified by SVRS*
* Since February 9, 2006, 6,929 potential incarcerated voters have been identified with 94% of reviewed records cancelled thus far.

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268,141 voters have been added to Indiana's Statewide Voter Registration System since coming online.

90,938 Voter Registrations have been received electronically from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles since the agency linked to SVRS on 1/23/2006

http://www.in.gov/sos/elections/SVRS.html

[hippiechick]

1. Heh, and the news channel that covered it poofed it over ...

... 'if you are purged from the rolls, all you have to do is go to where you were previously registered to vote, and you can vote ...'

EXCEPT, if you're purged - YOU CAN'T FRIGGIN VOTE!

AND if you show up to vote in your old district, with a current ID that has a different address from where you 'used to vote''s district - YOU CAN'T FRIGGIN VOTE!

AND how many people aren't going to know in enough time to re-register, or do the 'vote by mail' advance thingie?


:mad: Very slick, Rokita, you smarmy toad!

[salin]

4. I thought the purge wouldn't take place for several years.

If the process, is what i understand it to be, it isn't necessarily bad. I say that as someone who was registered to vote in B-ton in the eighties - lived in two other states for nearly a decade, and went to register again in B-ton - and found I didn't have to - i was still on the books! This may not be an issue in some areas, but in a college town it is problematic. People who haven't lived or voted here in 15 years are still on the books, and those folks, based on their addresses, help to determine where polls are located, how many resources (number of machines) are allocated to specific locations - and in many near campus precincts there will only be two voters - while close to one thousand are "registered".

This is how I understand the process to work - that a mailing has been sent out registered mail - and that another mailing will go out. For those for whom both mailings are returned (suggesting that the person *may* have voted), their registration is 'tagged' - but not purged. If the person votes in any of the next two general elections (and/or the 2008 primary) - then they continue to be registered and are not purged. Only if the person is tagged, and then does not vote in any election over the next two years will the person be "purged".

Granted this process is problematic - and I think that the flaws should be held up to light - and Rokita and the legislature should be pushed to plug up any areas that could lead to disenfranchisement.

All of that said - there is one BIG thing to watch for in November - not about purging - but about the timing of the purging and the potential for GOP dirty tricks in terms of using the mailings (returned mailings) as a pretext for "challenging" votes/voters in the general election. Given the three very close House races... imo THIS IS THE BIG PROBLEM.

[freedomfries]

2. Editorial Post: IN GOP purging voter rolls

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060801/NEWS02/608010415/1008
Thank you for posting the IndyStar article JQC.
This has to be stopped. The time to perform voter roll maintenance is after and not right before the elections.
Get busy folks!

[Chiyo-chichi]

3. This made the DU front page.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x226182