The Perfect Storm: Motor Voter Act, Voter ID, and Deportation

This story begins with the plans that would allow people who are in the U.S. illegally or are legal but not citizens, to get driver’s licenses.

The most recent state, Connecticut, is still working on the wording of their bill. If enacted today, about 54,000 immigrants are old enough to apply. Advocates say it would ensure undocumented immigrants are given proper driving tests and allow them to get car insurance and provide additional state revenue from registration fees and car taxes.

The states that allow undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses: Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

The next chapter in our story is The Motor Voter Act.

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), popularly known as The Motor Voter Act, compliance did not become mandatory until 1995, is a legislation that required state governments to allow registration when a qualifying voter applied for or renewed their drivers license or applied for social services. This legislation forced state governments to make the voter registration process easier by providing uniform registration services through drivers' license registration centers, disability centers, schools, libraries, and mail-in registration.

The NVRA allows the Department of Justice to bring civil actions in federal court to enforce its requirements. These sections deal with voter registration:

• States should provide individuals with the opportunity to register to vote at the same time that they apply for a driver's license or seek to renew a driver's license, and requires the State to forward the completed application to the appropriate state of local election official. [Section 5]

• States should offer voter registration opportunities at all offices that provide public assistance and all offices that provide state-funded programs primarily engaged in providing services to persons with disabilities. Each applicant for any of these services, renewal of services, or address changes must be provided with a voter registration form of a declination form as well as assistance in completing the form and forwarding the completed application to the appropriate state or local election official. [Section 7 ]

• The Act also creates requirements as to how States should maintain voter registration lists for federal elections.[ Section 8]

The Act applies to 44 states and the District of Columbia. Those states which did not have voter registration requirements or had election-day registration at polling places were exempted from the purview of the Act.

Now comes along more voter ID laws that require people who do not drive go to their motor vehicle office to get a picture ID.

So here is the perfect storm.

Imagine having just arrived as a legal or undocumented immigrant to the United States. With foreign passport and visa in hand, or in some states no documents, you go to your local department of motor vehicles office to obtain a state ID or driver’s licence. To your surprise, a DMV official offers you the opportunity to become an organ donor and to register to vote.

As a result, you walk out of your local DMV, a proud new potential organ donor with state ID in hand. Within a few weeks you receive your voter-registration card in the mail, which you regard as official confirmation of your eligibility to vote. During the next election you happily go to your local polling place to vote, fulfilling what you see as your civic duty in your new homeland.

What you don't know is that your voter-registration card and your participation in a federal congressional election amount to an immigration kiss of death. You soon receive notice from the Department of Homeland Security of your impending deportation.

Sounds like an immigrant's worst nightmare. Unfortunately, thanks to the 1993 NVRA, it's a reality for many immigrants who arrive in the U.S. eager to start a new life.

Motor Voter effectively does away with document requirements and incorporates a convenient voter-registration solicitation as part of the process of issuing a driver's license or state ID. Unfortunately, these immigrants who mistakenly register to vote, then those that vote, risk deportation.

So we have created this perfect storm.

Let me know how you would fix this.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Justice Files Case Against FL Voter Purge

The Department of Justice announced today that it has filed a lawsuit against the state of Florida and the Florida Secretary of State in his official capacity alleging that the state has violated its obligations under Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).

The complaint, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, alleges that Florida has violated the NVRA by conducting a systematic program to purge voters from its voter registration rolls within the 90-day quiet period before an election for federal office established by the law. In addition, the complaint alleges that Florida’s use of inaccurate and unreliable voter verification procedures violates the requirement in Section 8 of the NVRA that any such program be uniform and nondiscriminatory.

“The Department of Justice has an overriding interest in protecting the rights of eligible citizens to register and vote free from unlawful burdens, while at the same time ensuring that ineligible persons do not register and vote in federal elections in violation of the law,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The department is committed to enforcing the National Voter Registration Act so that these objectives are met.”









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Justice Tells FL to Stop the Voter Purge Project

Florida has begun a purge of “non-citizens” from the voting rolls and reports are saying that hundreds of eligible voters have already been struck from the rolls.

Florida has already put out an initial list of more than 2,600 people identified as non-U.S. citizens and has indicated it could aim to purge up to 180,000 supposed non-citizens from the rolls, but from all the inaccuracies, that could mean a staggering number of eligible voters being wrongfully purged and denied their right to vote.

This process is going forward with no oversight, and is all too reminiscent of the scrub orchestrated in 2000 by Secretary of State Katherine Harris under then Gov. Jeb Bush. Under Gov. Rick Scott and Sec. of State Ken Detzner, Florida has already erected barriers to voter registration that hurt minority and low-income voters.

The Department of Justice has sent a letter to the Florida Secretary of State telling him to stop the voter purge. In addition to being wrong, it appears that it is also probably illegal. It demands a response by 6/6/2012.

Not only did Florida fail to clear the purge under the Voting Rights Act, which it was required to do, but it seems to be in clear violation of the National Voter Registration Act.

According to the NVRA, voter roll maintenance should have been concluded 90 days before an election. Florida’s primary is on August 14, so that means any purge or other voter roll adjustments should have ceased on May 16.

A spokesman for Florida Secretary of State, Ken Detzner, said the state must make certain that only eligible voters cast ballots.

"We have a year-round obligation to ensure the integrity of Florida's elections. We will be responding to (the Justice Department's) concerns next week," Chris Cate said in an email message.

UPDATE
Saying the state would not stop trying to scrub the rolls of ineligible voters, Florida’s election chief told the Department of Justice on Wednesday that Florida was not violating any laws.

The official, Ken Detzner, Florida’s secretary of state, accused the federal government of sullying the integrity of the election process by trying to thwart Florida’s efforts to remove voters who are not American citizens.

Mr. Detzner went on to say that it was the Department of Homeland Security that appeared to be violating the law by depriving Florida of access to a federal immigration database. A Homeland Security privacy-impact statement dated August 2011 states that the database can be used for “any legal purpose such as background investigations and voter registrations.”

Florida requested access to the database last year to help verify its voter list but has not received it. The agency has said the request poses legal and technical challenges. Considering the delay, Mr. Detzner said the federal government could not now accuse the state of trying to remove voters too close to an election.

“This hardly seems like an approach earnestly designed to protect the integrity of elections and to ensure that eligible voters have their votes counted,” Mr. Detzner wrote in a letter on Wednesday to T. Christian Herren Jr., the chief of the Justice Department’s voting section.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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