Petition Urges Investigation Into U.S. Election Agency

More than 116,000 people have signed an online petition urging the Inspector General to investigate what it calls voter suppression at a Federal Government agency entrusted with making voting more accessible.

The progressive advocacy group CREDO Action said it planned to deliver petition signatures Wednesday to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission's Inspector General Patricia Layfield.

The Commission referred any comment to Layfield, who said in an email that she had not yet received the petition. She said she was not willing to comment on any of her office's existing or planned projects.

At issue is the unilateral action by Executive Director Brian Newby that without public notice required residents of Kansas, Alabama and Georgia to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote when using a Federal form.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill says an Election official had no authority to unilaterally modify a Federal voter registration form to require proof-of-citizenship documents to register to vote in Kansas, Alabama and Georgia.

The Missouri Democrat released on a letter sent to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission saying the actions of its Executive Director, Brian Newby, could cause irreparable harm to the Commission. Worse yet, she says, it could deprive tens of thousands of American citizens of their rights to cast a ballot.

McCaskill asks Commissioners to ignore Newby's illegitimate actions and revert to its prior policies. She says the changes requested by the three states are policy changes that must be publicly considered by the full Commission.

U.S. Election Assistance Commission Executive Director Brian D. Newby’s action to allow three states to require documentary proof of citizenship on the Federal voter registration form is illegal, argued the League of Women Voters of the United States, along with its Alabama, Georgia, and Kansas state Leagues, and others in a suit filed in federal court. Civil rights groups: the Georgia NAACP, the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, and Project Vote, along with Marvin Brown and JoAnn Brown, also join the suit against the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC).











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