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Culling Voter Rolls: Battling Over Who Even Gets to Go to the Polls
New York Times ^ | November 25, 2017 | MICHAEL WINES

Posted on 11/26/2017 4:50:22 AM PST by reaganaut1

WASHINGTON — On its face, the notice sent to 248 county election officials asked only that they do what Congress has ordered: Prune their rolls of voters who have died, moved or lost their eligibility — or face a federal lawsuit.

The notice, delivered in September by a conservative advocacy group, is at the heart of an increasingly bitter argument over the seemingly mundane task of keeping accurate lists of voters — an issue that will be a marquee argument before the Supreme Court in January.

At a time when gaming the rules of elections has become standard political strategy, the task raises a high-stakes question: Is scrubbing ineligible voters from the rolls worth the effort if it means mistakenly bumping legitimate voters as well?

The political ramifications are as close as a history book. Florida’s Legislature ordered the voter rolls scrubbed of dead registrants and ineligible felons before the 2000 presidential election. The resulting purge, based on a broad name-matching exercise, misidentified thousands of legitimate voters as criminals, and prevented at least 1,100 of them — some say thousands more — from casting ballots.

That was the election in which George W. Bush’s 537-vote margin in Florida secured his place in the White House. Controlling the rules of elections — including who is on or off the rolls — has been both a crucial part of political strategy and a legal battleground ever since.

Conservative groups and Republican election officials in some states say the poorly maintained rolls invite fraud and meddling by hackers, sap public confidence in elections and make election workers’ jobs harder. Voting rights advocates and most Democratic election officials, in turn, say that the benefits are mostly imaginary, and that the purges are intended to reduce the number of minority, poor and young voters

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2018issues; voterfraud
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1 posted on 11/26/2017 4:50:22 AM PST by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1
...raises a high-stakes question: Is scrubbing ineligible voters from the rolls worth the effort if it means mistakenly bumping legitimate voters as well?

Fake argument. False premise that is used because it is the only viable opposition to doing the right thing-cleaning up the voter rolls.

2 posted on 11/26/2017 4:56:30 AM PST by VRW Conspirator (Enforce the Law. Build the Wall.)
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To: reaganaut1

Yeah. Sure. Felons, illegal aliens, bussed around voters, multi state voters. All welcome to the New York Slimes


3 posted on 11/26/2017 4:56:34 AM PST by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: reaganaut1

Should have turned the task over to Foundation for Freedom From Religion. Officials everywhere melt at the thought of receiving a letter on their desk.


4 posted on 11/26/2017 4:59:02 AM PST by healy61
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To: reaganaut1
As we say in the South, "The whipped dog yelps"..
The Dems will squall at having their freebie votes purged. And the din has reached the point of saturation where IDGAF what they're cryin about today. d;^)
5 posted on 11/26/2017 5:00:59 AM PST by CopperTop (Outside the wire it's just us chickens. Dig?)
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To: reaganaut1
"That was the election in which George W. Bush’s 537-vote margin in Florida secured his place in the White House. Controlling the rules of elections"

If we could have just gotten a few hundred illegal aliens, convicted criminals, out of state residents, and dead people to vote we would have never hard the Bush nightmare which led to Trump!
6 posted on 11/26/2017 5:02:08 AM PST by Kartographer ("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
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To: reaganaut1

Funny. Now when I see an article from WaPo or the NYTimes I automatically invert whatever angle they’re pushing. If they say it’s “bad” it’s “good”. I simply mirror-read whatever they’re spouting.


7 posted on 11/26/2017 5:02:48 AM PST by Flick Lives (The FBI is a taxpayer funded Mafia organization)
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To: reaganaut1
Is scrubbing ineligible voters from the rolls worth the effort if it means mistakenly bumping legitimate voters as well?

The law says yes, as some mistakes are unavoidable. For instance, I have a friend who lived in Indiana, his name was as common as the name Jim Johnson. He was Jim E. Johnson and his upstairs neighbor in the same building was Jim A. Johnson. His upstairs neighbor Jim A. Johnson voted in the Democrat primary, and they crossed Jim E. Johnson off the list as having voted. Not only was he not able to vote, but he had a heck of a time explain to the local party why he voted in a Democrat election when he was applying for a low-level position.

These things are to some degree unavoidable. Preventing thousands of people voting at the wrong address or on behalf of dead people does far more to preserve the franchise for the body politic.

Even the partially implemented reforms in Wisconsin made a difference last election day. Despite the Dems tears, it was NOT about the 108 year old lady from Milwaukee who claimed she had no photo ID. It was about the phony same day registrants who used a Kohl's flyer addressed "RESIDENT" for same day registration. New Hampshire was lost by phony same day registrants.
8 posted on 11/26/2017 5:03:33 AM PST by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics.)
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To: reaganaut1

The real reason NYS hates ID: We’ve been losing House seats for decades. We’re down from 40+ House districts in the 1940s to 27 now. We lost 2 after the 2010 census. Rumor is we’re gonna lose 1 to 2 more after the next. NYS is bleeding taxpayers, jobs, and House seats. Which is why accurate voter rolls are the LAST thing the uniparty wants.


9 posted on 11/26/2017 5:05:23 AM PST by mewzilla (Was Obama surveilling John Roberts? Might explain a lot.)
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To: Kartographer

Ignoring, of course, the thousands of military votes in Florida that were systematically discarded by the Left which would have given Bush a wider margin. So, which group has the more legitimate complaint - the one who wanted felons and illegals to have their votes counted or the one who wanted to have the people defending our country to have their votes counted?


10 posted on 11/26/2017 5:09:10 AM PST by OrangeHoof (Let Trump Be Trump. Would you rather have Hillary?)
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To: reaganaut1

democrats want as many felons, dead people, and illegals voting for them as possible, because it’s the only way they can win elections.


11 posted on 11/26/2017 5:13:17 AM PST by euram (4)
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To: VRW Conspirator

It’s additionally fake because every one of those people you have had their name purged in error can vote CONDITIONALLY.

After they are declared eligible, their vote will be then counted. It is a false argument.


12 posted on 11/26/2017 5:14:37 AM PST by Bartholomew Roberts
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To: reaganaut1
Is scrubbing ineligible voters from the rolls worth the effort if it means mistakenly bumping legitimate voters as well?

Absolutely.

The legitimate voters were able to prove their eligibility to vote previously, and can do it again.

The illegitimate voters who were never able to prove their eligibility still cannot do that.

It all works out.

13 posted on 11/26/2017 5:20:28 AM PST by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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One thing they could do is send a new voter registration card to each registered voter
each two year election cycle. All returned cards are removed or a hold placed on the
registrant until cleared up.


14 posted on 11/26/2017 5:21:17 AM PST by deport
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To: VRW Conspirator

Fake argument. False premise that is used because it is the only viable opposition to doing the right thing-cleaning up the voter rolls.


Yes. The Left always puts up hypotheticals to justify itself.

They ignore reality when it suits them. A common thing to do, but very dangerous when they control so much media.


15 posted on 11/26/2017 5:21:43 AM PST by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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To: reaganaut1
George W. Bush’s 537-vote margin in Florida

it was the NYT’s that was a major party in analyzing the Florida election to determine who would have won had the vote recount been conducted. They determined it would still have been Bush. So now they are promoting a different slant.

16 posted on 11/26/2017 5:23:10 AM PST by Michael.SF. (Women who are 25 pounds overweight tend to live longer than the men who mention it.)
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To: OrangeHoof
This is mostly forgotten but I remind any mush-head who whines about “voter suppression”
17 posted on 11/26/2017 5:26:05 AM PST by NativeSon ( Grease the floor with Crisco when I dance the Disco)
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To: reaganaut1
Is scrubbing ineligible voters from the rolls worth the effort if it means mistakenly bumping legitimate voters as well?

YES. If done in a timely manner, erroneously scrubbed eligible voters can re-register. And "mistakenly" will most of the time be due to failure on the part of the voter to maintain their information properly. Furthermore, there are provisional ballots available and these "disenfranchised" voters can still vote and be counted. All of which yields a much more accurate election.

On the other hand, if deceased or relocated voters remain on the rolls, the probability of voter fraud, WHICH HAS OCCURRED, is increased.

18 posted on 11/26/2017 5:29:15 AM PST by NonValueAdded (#DeplorableMe #BitterClinger #HillNO! #cishet #MyPresident #MAGA #Winning #covfefe)
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To: VRW Conspirator
,I.Fake argument. False premise that is used because it is the only viable opposition to doing the right thing-cleaning up the voter rolls.

Yep - plus it ain't that hard to prove voter eligibility if you happen to be one of the minuscule number that shouldn't have been purged....they act as if being dropped means one never gets to vote again.

19 posted on 11/26/2017 5:41:49 AM PST by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: reaganaut1
Prune their rolls of voters who have died?

Bad news for the Democrats!

20 posted on 11/26/2017 5:42:58 AM PST by Savage Beast (Leftists hate TRUTH! TRUTH is the bete noire that haunts their paranoia!)
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