New York Voters Sue The State, Claiming Mass Voter Roll Purges

New York Voters Sue The State, Claiming Mass Voter Roll Purges

BY NATHAN TEMPEY IN NEWS ON APR 18, 2016 5:20 PM

Dozens of New York voters are suing the state, saying that their voter registration changed without their input, costing them the ability to vote in Tuesday's primary. The lawsuit, filed this afternoon in Long Island federal court by the group Election Justice USA, argues that the voters' alleged registration changes deny them equal protection under the constitution, and demands a blanket order allowing "tens of thousands" of potential plaintiffs to vote in tomorrow's presidential primary.

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"We were seeing an alarming number of voter affiliations changed without people's knowledge or consent, people who were registered listed as not registered," said Shyla Nelson, a spokeswoman for Election Justice USA.

As the primary neared and the group solicited accounts of irregularities, reports poured in, she said: "What started as a trickle is now a river."

More than 200 voters signed onto the lawsuit, Nelson said on Friday (she was still tallying late additions this afternoon as lawyers pushed up against the close-of-court deadline).

One plaintiff, a 24-year-old from Suffolk County, says that he registered as a Democrat in 2009, and that a change of affiliation form the BOE showed him, supposedly proving he left the party, bears a signature that is an "identical, pixel-by-pixel" copy of the signature on his driver's license. Another plaintiff, a 58-year-old from upstate Onondaga County, had been registered as a Democrat since 1989, but on April 11th found that her registration was "purged." An employee of the county told her that the change was a clerical error, but that she would not be able to vote on Tuesday, according to the suit. Others named in the lawsuit registered for the first time within days of the new voter deadline in March, or the party-change deadline last October.

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The suit asks for the state to preserve all provisional ballots and create a hearing process where voters can explain irregularities, adding a layer of due process, where currently, lawyers argue, the ballots are "discarded by the Board of Elections in a closed room." What the lawsuit calls "purges," its authors argue, disproportionately affect Hispanic, African-American, and Hispanic voters, as have previous electoral manipulations in the state's history. The legal filing, which shows signs of being assembled in extreme haste, also cites the just-reported decline of registered Democrats in Brooklyn by 63,500, voters it also calls "purged."

One Brooklyn resident recounts registering as a new voter last month and, upon being unable to find her registration, calling the Brooklyn BOE only to be told it was probably lost in the mail....


Read more:
http://gothamist.com/2016/04/18/voter_registration_lawsuit.php