voter disenfranchisement

Kathy Dopp, a mathematician and computer scientist, has issued a new paper today on Instant Runoff Voting. The bottom line - IRV does not meet its promise and it is damaging to election integrity. Since the main proponent has set up office in North Carolina, it behooves anyone who cares about their vote to read this. North Carolina has trouble counting votes now, we don't need to make it more complicated.

Throughout his tenure, Alberto Gonzales has allowed political gamesmanship to drive the US Justice Department, an agency that has enormous power to jail people, destroy reputations, and affect the outcome of elections.

In addition to the firing of nine US attorneys and the use of warrantless wiretaps in the war on terror, Gonzales also assisted in a five-year Republican campaign to pursue restrictive voter ID laws that would disproportionately disenfranchise minority, senior, student, and disabled voters.

That legacy of voter suppression extends to North Carolina, where Republican State Auditor Les Merritt trumped up earlier this year unsubstantiated charges of voter fraud to discourage eligible voters from going to the polls.

“The North Carolina Democratic Party is pleased that the Bush Administration’s exit strategy includes the resignation of Alberto Gonzales,” said NCDP Chair Jerry Meek. “But while we’re throwing out the bad apples and restoring integrity to the electoral process, Mr. Les Merritt should be the next to go.”

Demand the Senate take a stand against voter suppression

Hans von Spakovsky has made a career out of suppressing the vote of minorities, most recently at the Department of Justice (DOJ). Under Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, von Spakovsky led the charge to turn the DOJ into an agency that undermines voting rights instead of protecting them.

Now Bush wants von Spakovsky to be confirmed for a seat on the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the agency in charge of enforcing election finance laws. It's an insult to Blacks, other minorities, and all who are struggling to maintain fair access to our democracy.

There is more to the North Carolina voter registration story than just Les Merritt trying to audit our voter rolls, which coincided neatly with a inquisitive memo from the "Department of Justice". The DOJ is now highly politicized and anxious to trim voter rolls rather than encourage voting. NC is not alone in "getting the memo".

About 150 onlookers formed a standing room only crowd at a State Legislature meeting room for State Auditor Les Merritt's command performance at the Select Committee on Government and Election Reform. Merritt tried to explain away his sudden interest in State election law as an outgrowth of a strategic audit of DMV. He got off to a reasonable start but seemed to lose vigor and credibility the longer he talked especially during questions from committee members.

By Scott Mooneyham

You'd think the U.S. Justice Department had more important worries, bosses to save or court cases to lose. But unfazed by public humiliation or courtroom defeats, the federal agency apparently has chosen North Carolina as the latest state to harass regarding how it maintains voter registration rolls.

The Justice Department sent a letter to state election officials in the spring implying that they are failing to properly purge registration lists of ineligible voters.

The letter stated that voter registration in some North Carolina counties exceeds the voting-age population.

To be fair, federal laws enacted in the aftermath of the 2000 election debacle require states to periodically review voter registration rolls and make "a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters."

But those same laws make clear that state election officials may not remove voters who have changed residence unless the voters have failed to vote in the last two federal elections and haven't responded to written notification.

The Help America Vote Act and National Voter Registration Act also provide no guidance on how states are expected to match databases to remove deceased voters or convicted felons.

The federal laws avoid such specificity for good reason.

According to liberal-leaning Project Vote, studies have found that even well-intended database matching efforts resulted in error rates between 20 and 32 percent. Those errors disenfranchise legitimate voters.

Frontpaged by gregflynn

The Department of Justice and Les Merritt, State Auditor - want to purge North Carolina's voter rolls - by 10 Percent. The State Board of Elections disagrees. The Charlotte Observer broke the story first, then the News and Observer , then Facing South (very comprehensive) and then all over the internet:

The Charlotte Observer provides the unvarnished version, while the rest of the media has slanted the title of the story.

The story begins in earnest on April 18, 2007 with this memo from the Department of Justice to the North Carolina State elections officials. This DOJ memo serves in effect as "license to purge voters" if an election official were so inclined. This memo reads just like a form letter, citing no specific registration numbers and fails to provide the "official" report that it alludes to.

But the DOJ is wrong.