Tuesday, May 30, 2017

U.S. Supreme Court Reviews Ohio's Voter-Purge Effort


The U.S. Supreme Court will consider giving States more freedom to rid their voter Rolls of People who haven’t Cast Ballots in a while.

The Case is Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, 16-980.

Agreeing to hear an Appeal by Ohio, the Justices said they’ll consider Reinstating a Purging technique used by the State before a Federal Appeals Court barred the practice. The Appeals Court Ruling let some 7,500 State Residents cast Ballots in the 2016 Election, even though they’d previously been Removed from the List of Eligible Voters.

Under the Disputed Procedure, Ohio mailed Notices to people who hadn’t Voted in Two Years, asking them to confirm that they still lived at that address. If someone didn’t respond and then didn’t Vote during the next four years, the State would remove the person.

The Appeals Court said the approach violated the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), which says Eligible people can’t be Removed because they didn’t Vote.

Ohio argues that it wasn’t removing people because they hadn’t Voted, but was simply trying to identify people who had Moved. The State has a separate procedure for Removing people who file change-of-Address forms with the U.S. Post Office.

Civil-Rights groups challenged the practice. They urged the Court not to hear the Case, arguing that only five other States had procedures similar enough to Ohio’s that they might be affected by a Supreme Court Ruling. Ohio says the issue has broader implications, pointing to a Brief filed in support of the Appeal by 15 other States.

The Court will hear arguments and Rule in the nine-month term that starts in October.

This is the Removal wording in the Law:

A system of file maintenance that makes a reasonable effort to remove registrants who are ineligible to vote from the official list of eligible voters. Under such system, consistent with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 1973gg et seq.), registrants who have not responded to a notice and who have not voted in 2 consecutive general elections for Federal office shall be removed from the official list of eligible voters, except that no registrant may be removed solely by reason of a failure to vote.

If an individual is to be removed from the computerized list, such individual shall be removed in accordance with the provisions of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 1973gg et seq.), including subsections (a)(4), (c)(2), (d), and (e) of section 8 of such Act (42 U.S.C. 1973gg-6).
i. For purposes of removing names of ineligible voters from the official list of eligible voters--
I. under section 8(a)(3)(B) of such Act (42 U.S.C. 1973gg-6(a)(3)(B)), the State shall coordinate the computerized list with State agency records on felony status; and
II. by reason of the death of the registrant under section 8(a)(4)(A) of such Act (42 U.S.C. 1973gg-6(a)(4)(A)), the State shall coordinate the computerized list with State agency records on death.
ii. Notwithstanding the preceding provisions of this subparagraph, if a State is described in section 4(b) of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 1973gg-2(b)), that State shall remove the names of ineligible voters from the computerized list in accordance with State law.


Conflicting language for the Supreme Court to decide.











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