Voting Rights Act | Kevin Barrett's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Voting Rights Act’

How To Prevent The “Purge” – Verify Your Voter Registration

Posted in General Comments, Politics, tagged American Politics, Donald Trump, General Comments, Hillary Clinton, Registration Purging, Shelby County vs. Holder, U.S. Supreme Court, Voter Registration, Voting Rights Act, Wisconsin on September 21, 2024| 4 Comments »

A while back I posted the list of States with their “Early Voting” dates. Yesterday, I posted the States which have already opened their early voting (or will open early voting this up-coming week). What I failed to mention was the requirement to register to vote in your county and State…

If you can’t win an election honestly (by getting more votes), the next best thing is to “win” by cheating (by removing some of the opposition’s voters). Hence, in a number of Republican controlled states, the Secretaries of State or the Supervisors of Elections have been conducting maintenance purges of voters from the rolls of registered voters in their areas (counties and statewide).

This was done quite effectively in Wisconsin in 2016 and it cost Hilary Clinton the state. The Republicans removed over 200,000 voters from their registered voters lists and Hilary came up just under 23,000 votes behind Trump.

Now, there are always legitimate reasons to remove voters from registration – typically, death and relocation out of state are the two biggies; and, I don’t claim that ALL of the voters removed were Democrats or that they were certain votes for Clinton.

What needs to be mentioned is that prior to 2013, States were required to obtain Federal approval of voter registration “maintenance” before they were allowed to conduct mass de-registrations (purges). This was because there was a Federal law (the Voting Rights Act) which required pre-approval (that states and counties with a history of racially discriminatory voting laws needed to get permission from the federal government before passing new voting laws). This provision was set aside by the U.S. Supreme Court in “Shelby County vs. Holder” which allowed the removal of voters from areas previously deemed discriminatory.

Since the decision (and mainly in Republican controlled States,) millions of voters have been removed from the registered voter lists. This means States are free to set their own requirements for remaining on the voter lists AND we (the individual voter) MUST verify we are still on the list for our county / State. Most voters vote during Presidential cycles or when there is a “special” issue election (abortion rights, property taxes, etc). Other than death and out of county moves, the most common reason for removing a voter from the list is failure to vote in the “last election”. Another common reason is name match error. In this case, you renew your driver’s license or register a property or vehicle with a “subset” of your name (Bill instead of William, or dropping the Jr. because your father has passed away) and now your name no longer matches the prior registered voter list record at your recorded address. Consequently, the county / state can drop you from the voter registration list until they can establish which is the “correct” you.

The bottom line is registering to vote is generally limited to some period prior to an election. Some states allow registration to occur the same day as (concurrent with) voting. MOST DO NOT ALLOW THIS!! Therefore, it behooves everyone to verify (AS SOON AS POSSIBLE) you are currently eligible to vote so you are not prevented from voting on election day.

Failure to verify your registration or failure to re-register before your State’s deadline may result in your not being able to vote in the up-coming Presidential election. Please pass this warning on to all of your friends and family members!!

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Click here (21 September) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.