dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

Arizona has violated federal voting-rights laws for more than two decades

How many Arizonans were unable to vote in the general election because they were purged from the rolls over out-of-date addresses that stemmed from violations of federal voting laws? State elections officials told The Arizona Republic this week that they had no way of knowing because there is no process to track voters affected by the routine removals.

The Arizona Secretary of State's Office knew before Tuesday's election that the registrations of about 390,000 Arizonans since November 2016 were not automatically updated when they changed the address on their driver’s licenses — a requirement under the National Voting Registration Act of 1993, unless a voter opts out of such updates. Some of those voters might, however, have cast provisional ballots, which can be counted if elections officials determine after the fact that they are legitimate.

As of Friday, an estimated 50,000 provisional ballots have been cast across Arizona with an additional 11,000 out-of-precinct ballots from Maricopa County voting centers. This estimate does not include Mojave and Gila counties, which haven't released data yet. Arizona elections officials say they have known for at least a decade that the state’s voter-registration system doesn't comply with the federal law designed to protect voters when officials purge the rolls. Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, which has sued the state, say Arizona has likely never fully met the requirements of federal voting-rights laws, specifically the NVRA. A Republic analysis found nearly 1.1 million Maricopa County residents had been purged from the voter rolls since the 2008 election, and about half were removed after mail from the elections department was returned undelivered — typically signaling the person has moved — triggering additional notices and a waiting period before removal. "

NVRA accounts for this," said Darrell Hill, an ACLU attorney involved in the suit over state violations. "That's why they've built in safety nets to capture these voters and bring them back (into the voter-registration system)."

Critics say voters who followed the rules, did everything right after they moved, updating their address through the Motor Vehicle Division, deserve better. The problem: Arizona doesn't follow all voter-registration safeguards required by federal law, and the violation appears to date back to the early 1990s when the NVRA was enacted under the Clinton administration.

Too little and decades too late

Arizona’s Secretary of State Michele Reagan — who four days before Election Day noted problems with the state’s voter-registration system — chose not to send a notice to voters before the election in case they wanted to fix their voter registration. Reagan said notices so close to the election might confuse voters. "The current system, the way it is now, has been in place for over 10 years and we actually agree that it does need to be changed," Reagan told The Republic on Friday. “So what is really the issue, is when do we change it?” A federal judge declined to force Reagan to notify voters before Tuesday's election, but allowed the lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of voter-registration groups, including the League of Women Voters of Arizona and Arizona’s chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, to move forward. For now, Reagan said the fix is expected to happen in 2019. Hill said that's too little and decades too late.

More Here:

https://amp.azcentral.com/amp/1932173002