In Michigan, as elsewhere, we are seeing the further advancement of the election tactic known as purging the voter rolls.
In advance of the 2000 election, the state of Florida passed an incredibly undemocratic law removing the rights of convicted felons to vote. This allowed the secretary of state (remember Katherine Harris?) to purge millions of voters from the rolls. They did it again in 2004, bringing their total purged well over 5 million.
This, as well as the broad discrepencies in exit polls and inconsistencies in many Florida districts brought the nation's attention to election procedures. This, of course, is a good thing. Republicans, however, turned their attention away from fixing the voting problems and turned instead toward caging and purging--two acts intended to bring down the number of people voting. These acts also disenfranchise the poor and the unrepresented in our culture. This action seemed to have the added effect of appearing to be the needed "election reform" that we wanted after watching the 2000 recount. They passed this off as the needed changes (because inconsistent voting machines should be blamed on having too many people voting?).
Now we have this coming to Michigan. This article here outlines the problem. It is illegal to purge voter rolls based on returned mail, and yet, the secretary of state (a Republican) is doing just that.
The problem, as with everything else, is that there is little time to do anything about this through the legal system. Urging Secretary Terri Lynn Land hasn't worked, and we are just over a month from the election. Even if a lawsuit by the ACLU gets a positive result before the election, it stilly may be impossible to get those individuals purged from the list back on it--and state law prevents them from reregistering that close to the election. Not to mention that the only way most of these people will learn that they have been purged from the voter rolls is when they show up to vote.
This is the height of unethical and immoral (not to mention illegal) procedure. True election reform must happen before the 2010 midterm elections, but if the last 8 years are any indication, I don't expect to see that happen. We must have the political will to make it a priority or injustice will be the standard.
In advance of the 2000 election, the state of Florida passed an incredibly undemocratic law removing the rights of convicted felons to vote. This allowed the secretary of state (remember Katherine Harris?) to purge millions of voters from the rolls. They did it again in 2004, bringing their total purged well over 5 million.
This, as well as the broad discrepencies in exit polls and inconsistencies in many Florida districts brought the nation's attention to election procedures. This, of course, is a good thing. Republicans, however, turned their attention away from fixing the voting problems and turned instead toward caging and purging--two acts intended to bring down the number of people voting. These acts also disenfranchise the poor and the unrepresented in our culture. This action seemed to have the added effect of appearing to be the needed "election reform" that we wanted after watching the 2000 recount. They passed this off as the needed changes (because inconsistent voting machines should be blamed on having too many people voting?).
Now we have this coming to Michigan. This article here outlines the problem. It is illegal to purge voter rolls based on returned mail, and yet, the secretary of state (a Republican) is doing just that.
The problem, as with everything else, is that there is little time to do anything about this through the legal system. Urging Secretary Terri Lynn Land hasn't worked, and we are just over a month from the election. Even if a lawsuit by the ACLU gets a positive result before the election, it stilly may be impossible to get those individuals purged from the list back on it--and state law prevents them from reregistering that close to the election. Not to mention that the only way most of these people will learn that they have been purged from the voter rolls is when they show up to vote.
This is the height of unethical and immoral (not to mention illegal) procedure. True election reform must happen before the 2010 midterm elections, but if the last 8 years are any indication, I don't expect to see that happen. We must have the political will to make it a priority or injustice will be the standard.
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