fbpx
11.05.2012 0

Ohio and Colorado Fail to Purge Ineligible Voters from the Rolls Prior to Election Day

Night of the Voting Dead

Photo Credit: Hampton Roads Tea Party

By Kevin Mooney — Colorado and Ohio could both determine the outcome of the presidential election, and other key races. But neither state is complying with a federal law that requires state officials to maintain and update their voter registration rolls.

Under Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), commonly known as “motor voter,” state social service agencies are required to offer prospective voters registration forms. Critics view this provision as an overt attempt to recruit Democratic leaning constituencies and to flood the election system with registration forms that are difficult to verify.

When the law was passed in 1993, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) warned that “motor voter” would open the way to voter fraud and undermine ballot integrity. The scandals that have beset the left-wing community organizing group known as ACORN, and its Project Vote affiliate, demonstrate how prescient McConnell was. But this is largely because President Obama’s Department of Justice refuses to enforce the NRVA’s Section 8, which requires state officials to purge the names of ineligible and dead voters. This has had serious consequences in recent election cycles and could impact the 2012 elections.

Take Colorado.

After obtaining documents from the Colorado Secretary of State’s office through an open records request, Judicial Watch found that state officials were pressured into accepting policy changes that set up to increase voter registration public assistance recipients. As a result, the number of the agencies responsible for public assistance jumped from rose from 3,340 in 2007 to almost 44,000 in 2010. But here’s the kicker: In the 2009-2010 period, eight percent of the voter registration forms that were rejected came from Colorado’s public assistance agencies. That’s over four times the national average of 1.9 percent.

An analysis of the voter registration rolls by ColoradoWatchdog.org found that a strong potential for voter fraud exists. Out of the 3.4 million registered voters in Colorado, 1.2 million are “inactive,” Earl Glynn, a special projects coordinator and researcher at the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, concluded. The inactive names “could be borrowed by corrupt official,” Glynn explained in his report.

Take Ohio.

Judicial Watch in partnership with “True the Vote” has filed a lawsuit against Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted that alleges he is not enforcing Section 8’s anti voter fraud directives. U.S. Census data shows that the number of individuals listed on voter registration rolls exceeds the number of eligible voters in at least three Ohio counties.

Judicial Watch and True the Vote have filed a similar lawsuit against Republican officials in Indiana, which is considered a sure win for Gov. Mitt Romney. But the race remains tight in both Colorado and Ohio polls show that Romney and President Obama are relatively even. If Romney loses Ohio by a close margin he may able to fix the blame on members of his own party who declined to remove ineligible voters from the rolls.

In a formal response to Judicial Watch, Secretary Husted claimed that Ohio’s efforts to update voter rolls “have been hampered . . . by the restrictions and seemingly inconsistent provisions of the NVRA.” Husted also informed Judicial Watch that he had written a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder “to discuss possible solutions,” but did not receive any response. This means Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State is deferring to Obama’s AG instead of upholding the clear and unambiguous wording of Section 8.

Kevin Mooney is a contributing editor to Americans for Limited Government. You can follow Kevin on Twitter at @KevinMooneyDC.

Kevin Mooney is a contributing editor to Americans for Limited Government.

Copyright © 2008-2024 Americans for Limited Government