A simple way to help prevent voter fraud and election abuse is for states to purge voter rolls. What does this mean? Getting rid of names on voter rolls of people ineligible to vote such as illegal aliens, dead people, duplicates, etc. For nearly a year, Florida election officials have asked the Department of Homeland Security for access to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement database in order to take illegal aliens and non-citizens off Florida voter rolls. Not surprisingly, DHS has been dragging its feet and has yet to comply with the request and now, the Department of Justice is stepping into the purging process and ordering Florida, a vital swing state, to stop.
The Justice Department sent a letter to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner Thursday evening demanding the state cease purging its voting rolls because the process it is using has not been cleared under the Voting Rights Act, TPM has learned.
DOJ also said that Florida’s voter roll purge violated the National Voter Registration Act, which stipulates that voter roll maintenance should have ceased 90 days before an election, which given Florida’s August 14 primary, meant May 16.
Five of Florida’s counties are subject to the Voting Rights Act, but the state never sought permission from either the Justice Department or a federal court to implement its voter roll maintenance program.
But who is really behind the letter? Mean radical DOJ attorney Elise Shore. Christian Adams has more:
What do we know about Elise Shore from the installment about the Voting Section?
Elise Shore. Ms. Shore came to the Voting Section by way of the “Southern Coalition for Social Justice,” where she worked as a legal consultant focusing on “voting rights, immigrant rights, and other civil rights and social justice issues.” The far left-wing positions of this group are nicely summarized on its website. Ms. Shore also made a $1,000 contribution to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
Before joining the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, she worked for more than two years as a Regional Counsel for MALDEF [Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund]. There, she was an outspoken critic of Georgia’s voter ID law and well as its proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration (which, incidentally, have been found to be non-discriminatory by a federal court) and described how heartened she was that the Civil Rights Division had objected to the registration law under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. But her joy must have been fleeting: the Division later capitulated and withdrew its objection after Georgia filed a federal declaratory judgment action. It will be interesting to see if Shore can put her politics to the side in her role as the Voting Section’s point of contact for all redistricting submissions in the state of Florida.
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FLASHBACK: Florida says at least 180,000 non-citizens sitting on voter rolls
Florida election authorities are examining about 180,000 people who they say may not be U.S. citizens but are registered to vote in the state, an official said on Friday.
State officials are updating Florida's voter rolls ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November. Florida is home to a large Latino population and is expected to be a critical swing state in the contest between Democratic President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
Officials in Florida have so far identified more than 2,600 potential voters who may not be U.S. citizens and sent their information to local election authorities, Cate said.
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