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(as also occurred especially in Florida in 2000)
Today's Crime Against Democracy: Purging of Eligible Voters > > Poorly conceived state policies concerning new statewide voter > registration databases are driving eligible voters off of the > rolls, through no fault of their own. Purging based on database > matching can be unreliable. Voters may be eliminated for such minor > variations as their middle initial missing from their voter > registration when compared to their ID. In some cases, these > “purges” can be discriminatory, whether by accident, or by design. > > Purged voters often end up voting on provisional ballots. While > provisional ballots were initially created to ensure that all > wrongfully purged voters could cast a ballot, they have turned out > to be a double-edged sword. In some states, they are routinely > discarded, uncounted. In 2004, fourteen states counted less than > 1/3 of the provisional ballots cast, with some counting fewer than > one out of ten ballots: Delaware 6%, Hawaii 7%, Oklahoma 8%. > Nationwide, over a million citizens who voted on provisional > ballots in 2004 did not have their vote counted. (NOTE: > Provisional Ballots will be the subject of an upcoming “rap > sheet” report.)  > Of all the strategies used in Florida in the 2000 election,the most > notorious was the systematic use of overly inclusive scrub lists, > intending to purge ex-felons from the voter rolls but actually to > disenfranchise as many Democrats—in particular, African-Americans > —as possible. Secretary of State Katherine Harris, through a list > compiled by DBT/ChoicePoint, named as felons tens of thousands of > Floridians with clean records, just because they shared a name or > an address with someone who had done hard time. Harris's office > then purged the rolls of all those on the list, over 90,000 > citizens, most of them entirely innocent. Nearly 3 percent of > Florida's eligible black voters were listed. DBT/ChoicePoint's > error rate was 97%. > The issue returned to prominence in 2004 when Florida announced > another planned purge, again based on a list of felons. Accenture, > a $14 billion company that has made millions doing government jobs, > was supposed to help Florida create a bulletproof felon voter list. > But state elections officials scrapped the list after newspaper > reports reported a flaw that invalidated it and indicated partisan > bias in its design. The demise of the list, which was three years > in the making, renews questions about Accenture's strong Republican > ties and its business practices. In fact, the company's resume is > littered with connections to drama that the nation's Republican > leadership would rather forget: Enron, Abu Ghraib and mysterious > Saudi businessmen. The company, once part of Enron's accounting > firm, Arthur Andersen, jettisoned the Andersen name in 2001 to > distance itself from scandal. >There were still widespread purges in Florida in 2004. In 2006, reports of problematic, and potentially partisan, voter roll purges have surfaced in Ohio, California, and WHERE ELSE? > > For additional background information, see: > > “Inaccurate Purges of the Voter Rolls: Issue in Brief,” <http:// > www.brennancenter.org/programs/dem_vr_castout_3.html> > > > > Action and Prevention: Confirm Your Voter Registration Status; > Research and Report Irregularities in Your State >
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