Voter Purging: A Legal Way for Republicans to Swing Elections?
By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Sept. 11, 2007.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/62133/Now the Department of Justice, like the Republican Party, wants fewer registered voters in 2008.
The Department of Justice's Voting Section is pressuring 10 states to purge voter rolls before the 2008 election ....
Voting Section Chief John Tanner called for the purges in letters sent this spring under an arcane provision in the National Voter Registration Act, better known as the Motor Voter law, whose purpose is to expand voter registration. The identical letters notify states that 10 percent or more of their election jurisdictions have problematic voter rolls. It tells states to report "the subsequent removal from rolls of persons no longer eligible to vote."
"That data does not say what they purport it says," said David Becker, People for the American Way Foundation's senior voting rights counsel ....
"You are basically seeing them grasping at whatever straws are possible to make their point," said Kim Brace ....
The Justice Department would not comment for this report, despite repeated requests.
The 10 states receiving Voting Section purge letters are Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Vermont. Since 2005, the Section has also sued six other states or cities.........