Month: September 2012

-By Michael Peltier

September 27, 2012- Voter protection groups said on Thursday Florida election officials had reneged on an agreement to ease up on efforts to purge non-U.S. citizens from voter rolls and accused the Republican-led administration of trying to intimidate voters.

Earlier this month, voting groups had dropped a legal challenge to a state purge of voter lists after Florida election officials said they had greatly reduced the number of potentially ineligible voters due to errors on an original list.

But on Wednesday, Department of State officials sent a new list of 198 names to county election supervisors culled from a Department of Homeland Security's database that tracks residency status.

The new purge effort was "not within the spirit of our agreement," said Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez, director of voter protection for Advancement Project, a Washington D.C.-based racial justice advocacy group. "It creates intimidation and confusion and the state knows very well this is going to get some eligible voters."

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-By Dan Froomkin

September 24, 2012- The state of Pennsylvania's ability to get every would-be voter a government-issued photo ID by Election Day will literally be on trial Tuesday.

The hearing before Commonwealth Judge Robert Simpson comes after the state Supreme Court last week instructed him to block a new law requiring ID at the polls unless he determines "that there will be no voter disenfranchisement" arising from its implementation.

Opponents of the law have said the state can't possibly prove that case, as the law's entire reason for existence is precisely to make it harder for the poor, members of minority groups, students, and the elderly to cast their ballots, and in that way suppress the Democratic vote.

Republican backers of the law have said it was intended to fight voter fraud. But in-person voter fraud — the only kind voter ID would reduce — is almost nonexistent.

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-By Suzanne Gamboa

September 21, 2012- WASHINGTON (AP) – Deidra Reese isn't waiting for people to come to her to find out whether they are registered to vote.

With iPad in hand, Reese is going to community centers, homes and churches in nine Ohio cities, looking up registrations to make sure voters have proper ID and everything else they need to cast ballots on Election Day.

"We are not going to give back one single inch. We have fought too long and too hard," said Reese, 45, coordinator of the Columbus-based Ohio Unity Coalition, an affiliate of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

Reese is part of a cadre of black women engaged in a revived wave of voting rights advocacy four years after the historic election of the nation's first black president. Provoked by voting law changes in various states, they have decided to help voters navigate the system – a fitting role, they say, given that black women had the highest turnout of any group of voters in 2008.

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