'Daily Voting News' For September 28, 2008

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org In our featured article today we again get information about the shut-down of the Social Security Administration's databases for maintenance. As related in the article by Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice this shut-down is important because "A 2002 federal law, the Help America Vote Act, requires all states to "coordinate" their voter registration databases with the Social Security database (and state motor vehicle databases) for the purpose of processing new voter registration forms. For the millions of voters who do not have current driver's licenses and register using the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, state election officials are required to try to match their voter registration information against Social Security records. But if the Social Security database is down-as it will be for four days-they won't be able to do that. Across the country, the processing of these voter registration forms will grind to a halt for four days". Why has the SSA scheduled this shut-down within three weeks of the Nov. election? Now Sen. Diane Feinstein has asked the same question. That letter can be found with the featured article.... **"Daily Voting News" is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in "Daily Voting News" may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or OpEdNews.Com**