The letter claims Bettencourt's office has canceled registration cards for non-citizenship for 3,742 voters in the last 15 years. King said he has “6,500 names of people who are on the voter registration rolls and should not be. We know there are tens of thousands in the state.”
These “findings” are not a far cry from the exaggerated list maintenance issue that recently made headlines in Texas despite findings of only .4% of the voter rolls populated with possible ineligible voters. By creating transparent, non-discriminatory list maintenance procedures mandated by the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act, issues of voter rolls being spiked by non-citizens can and are being resolved. However, the specter of “voter fraud” - in this case playing on racist fears of undocumented immigrants - is being used as a partisan attempt to wrongfully deny voter registration to eligible potential voters through, for example, proof-of-citizenship requirements. And it is also being used to agitate for aggressive purges of the voting rolls. Both are means to legitimatize disenfranchisement of otherwise eligible citizens.
Spokesperson for the Secretary of State, Scott Haywood said Wilson had not received the letter and could not comment. However, “if they [the legislature] decide we need more or better means of identification, we'll do that,” Haywood said. “We'll do whatever is necessary to maintain the integrity of the elections system in Texas.”
While the report is unclear on how many non-citizens are filling out registration cards and committing actual voter fraud by voting on Election Day, it is clear from the Brennan Center and Project Vote data (above) how many legitimate citizens would be blocked from exercising their most basic democratic right if such proof-of-citizenship initiatives were implemented in the U.S. If maintaining election integrity in Texas (or any of the 17 other states that have considered proof-of-citizenship laws in recent years) entails disenfranchising millions of citizens to “protect” against the exceedingly rare crime of voter fraud, lawmakers and citizens should re-think the definition of “integrity.”
Quick Links:
Contact:
Express your thoughts on the Texas proof-of-citizenship proposal and click on the following links for contact information of the state political figures mentioned in the story.Phil Wilson, Texas Secretary of State
Phil King, District 61 Representative (R-Weatherford)
Boyd Richie, Texas Democratic Party Chairman
Reports:
“Citizens Without Proof.” The Brennan Center For Justice. November 2006.
In Other News:
An Ohio study deemed Wisconsin's election system “2nd best in the Midwest.” The study praised the state for allowing registration on Election Day as well as “its attempts to create a nonpartisan election system, both historically and with the formation of its new Government Accountability Board.” The problems encountered were “slow speed of the database system, failure to match against motor vehicle records and other state records, and problems with the absentee voting module.” Read more in this Green Bay Press-Gazette report.
“Whether Americans will be able to verify electronic vote counts in 2008's presidential election will vary from state to state, as underscored by a little-noticed lawsuit that goes to trial this week in Pima County, Ariz., where Tucson is located. There, in a fast-growing region, the local Democratic Party is suing the Pima County Board of Supervisors -- including its three Democratic members -- to release the complete electronic records of a 2006 election that included a ballot question on raising taxes for a $2 billion transportation bond. The measure, favored by developers, won even though it lost in prior elections and was trailing in pre-election polls.” Read more in this AlterNet report.
“A handful of top state election officials, including Maryland's former secretary of state John Willis, have joined a lawsuit challenging Indiana's Voter ID law,” arguing that their “cumulative professional experience has seen 'virtually no evidence of polling place voter impersonation fraud, the stated reason for enactment of the Indiana law at issue here.'” Read more of this Associated Press report here.
Erin Ferns is a Research and Policy Analyst with Project Vote’s Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD).
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