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Voter caging and purging
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Voter caging is the practice of sending mail to registered voters and challenging their eligibility to vote if the mail is returned as undeliverable. Voter purging is the practice of removing names from the voter rolls, or the list of registered voters.
Voter caging
Voter caging refers to a practice in which a political party or another partisan organization sends registered mail to addresses of registered voters whom they have identified as likely to be unfriendly to their candidate. All mail that is returned as undeliverable is placed on what is called a caging list. The group then challenges the right to vote of the people on the list, on the grounds that if the voters were unreachable at the address listed on their voter registration, then they are not eligible to vote in that area.[1]
Challenging voter caging
The process of issuing the challenges differs from state to state. Commonly, though, the process begins with a formal written challenge filed with local election boards by a certain date before the election.[2]
States where voter caging is illegal
Minnesota outlawed the practice of building voter caging lists compiled from returned mail sent by a political party after the 2004 election.[3]
Examples of caging
Michigan (2008)
On September 16, 2008, the Obama legal team announced they would seek an injunction to stop an alleged caging operation in Michigan wherein the state Republican Party would use home foreclosure lists to challenge voters still using their foreclosed home as a primary address at the polls.[4] Although Michigan GOP officials called the suit "desperate," a judge found the practice to be against the law.[5][6]
Louisiana (1986)
A 2004 article in the Washington Post stated, "In 1986, the Republican National Committee tried to have 31,000 voters, most of them black, removed from the rolls in Louisiana when a party mailer was returned. The consent decrees that resulted prohibited the party from engaging in anti-fraud initiatives that target minorities or conduct mail campaigns to 'compile voter challenge lists.'"[7]
New Jersey (1981)
A 2004 article in the Washington Post stated, "In 1981, the Republican National Committee sent letters to predominantly black neighborhoods in New Jersey, and when 45,000 letters were returned as undeliverable, the committee compiled a challenge list to remove those voters from the rolls. The RNC sent off-duty law enforcement officials to the polls and hung posters in heavily black neighborhoods warning that violating election laws is a crime."[7]
Voter purging
Voter registration lists, also called voter rolls, are the gateway to voting because a citizen typically cannot cast a vote that will count unless his or her name appears on the voter registration rolls. State and local officials regularly remove—or purge—citizens from voter rolls. At least 17 million people were removed from voter registration lists from 2016 to 2018.[8]
Why purges are done
Purges, if done properly, are a means to ensure that voter rolls are dependable, accurate, and up-to-date. Precise and carefully conducted purges can remove duplicate names and people who have moved, died, or are otherwise ineligible.[9]
Problems with purging
Purging creates a problem when an eligible, registered citizen shows up to vote and discovers that his or her name has been removed from the voter list. Different states exercise very different practices as to how they maintain their voter rolls. Some critics of the process, such as the Brennan Center for Justice, maintain that sometimes the process is "shrouded in secrecy, prone to error and vulnerable to manipulation."[9]
Remedies for wrongful purging
In 2002, Congress mandated that all states enact the Help America Vote Act to help fix some of the problems faced in the 2000 elections. HAVA requires persons who claim to be registered to vote in a federal election in a jurisdiction, but are not on the voter registration list or are otherwise alleged to be ineligible to vote, be offered and permitted to cast a provisional, or paper, ballot. This provisional ballot would then be verified and counted after the election. In the 2004 election, 1.6 million provisional ballots were cast, and over 1 million were counted. Seventy percent of provisional ballots cast in states that allow provisional ballots to be cast in the proper jurisdiction were counted as valid. In states requiring that provisional ballots be cast in the proper precinct, 62 percent were counted.[10]
Voter purging news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Voter purging caging. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External links
- Brennan Center, "Voter Challenges and Caging"
- Brennan Center, "Voter Caging: Executive Summary"
- Brennan Center, "A Guide to Voter Caging"
- Project Vote, "Voter Caging"
- Project Vote, "Voter Caging Map (2007)"
- Project Vote, "Caging Democracy:A 50-Year History of Partisan Challenges to Minority Voters"
- Project Vote, "Maintaining voter rolls"
- Project Vote, "Maintaining Current and Accurate Voter Lists"
- ACLU, "Purged! How Flawed and Inconsistent Voting Systems Could Deprive Millions of Americans of the Right to Vote"
- United States Election Commission, "Voluntary Guidance on Implementation of Statewide Voter Registration Lists"
Footnotes
- ↑ Brennan Center, "A Guide to Voter Caging," accessed March 14, 2014
- ↑ Project Vote, "Voter Caging," accessed March 14, 2014
- ↑ Twin Cities Daily Planet, "Election official: Minnesota Majority group aims to keep people from voting," accessed March 14, 2014
- ↑ MM.com, "Voter Suppression efforts could determine the election," accessed March 14, 2014
- ↑ New York Times, "Michigan: Ruling on Voting Rights," accessed March 14, 2014
- ↑ Time: The Page, "Michigan GOP: Obama Camp Suit Desperate," accessed March 14, 2014
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Washington Post, "GOP Challenging Voter Registrations," accessed March 14, 2014
- ↑ Brennan Center, "Voter Purge Rates Remain High, Analysis Finds," August 1, 2019
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedvoter purges - ↑ Advancement Project, "Barriers to the Ballot: 2008 Election and Beyond," accessed March 14, 2014
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