Editorials: No, overturning campaign contribution limits really would be a problem | Bob Biersack/Washington Post

Ray La Raja made some interesting points in his post last week about McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission.  I’m not as sanguine as he is about this case, and I think each of his points deserves a little more consideration. First, Ray argues that the current direct contribution limit for people giving to candidates ($2,600 per election) is very low.  He goes so far as to note that $2,600 is about 0.18% of the $1.4 million or so the typical House winner spends in a campaign.  There are a couple of nits to pick with this description.  First, the $2,600 limit is, of course, a “per election” limit, and virtually every candidate for federal office participates in at least two elections (a primary and a general) in each cycle.  So, the proper way to describe this boundary is that the existing limit is effectively at least $5,200 per candidate.   That means that just under 300 people are able to fully fund the typical House winner under existing limits without a penny from PACs or parties or other campaigns — not exactly requiring a groundswell of support.

Voting Blogs: Navigating Debates about Redistricting | The Monkey Cage

People feel passionately about redistricting.  They don’t like how it’s done, or how it’s disadvantaged their party, or both.  So when political scientists come along to say “redistricting might matter less than you think”—for the outcomes of the 2012 House elections, for party polarization, for declining electoral competitiveness—people get cranky.  For example:

 Suck on it Monkey Cage and prove me wrong with maps.

So there’s clearly room for more thinking and discussion about the effects of redistricting.  Here are 4 things I think are important to discuss or at least mention.

Arizona: Kansas and Arizona Ready Plans to Keep Voters from Voting in State Elections | AllGov

Threatening to upend a tradition of equality that dates back to the founding of the country, Republican political leaders in Kansas and Arizona are discussing plans to establish a multi-tier voting rights system for their states if they lose a voting rights case currently in federal court. The net effect would be to bar some U.S. citizens—mostly immigrants, racial minorities, the elderly, and the poor—from voting in state and local elections even as they cast ballots in federal contests. For the past several years, in response to ongoing demographic changes that are making the U.S. increasingly non-white and non-Anglo-Saxon, Republican-dominated state legislatures have passed a variety of laws making it harder to register or to vote. But this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an Arizona law requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering because the national “motor voter” registration form demands only a signed oath of citizenship. The Court held that states cannot increase the federal voter registration requirements on the motor voter form, but they may ask the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to add requirements to it. Rebuffed by the EAC, Kansas and Arizona filed a court case to bend the EAC to their will, but in the likely event they fail, the tiered voting system is a backup plan.

Editorials: Seek bipartisan OK for online voter registration in Minnesota | Star Tribune

It’s high time for online voter registration to come to Minnesota, promising the convenience, accuracy and administrative cost savings it has already delivered in 16 other states, with two more state systems pending. It’s a shame that it arrived here under partisan and legal clouds that could threaten its staying power. Republican legislative leaders were quick to fault Secretary of State Mark Ritchie last week for initiating an online voter registration system without first obtaining explicit legislative permission to do so. Minnesota Majority — the voter fraud alarmist organization that pushed last year’s unsuccessful attempt to make a government-issued photo ID a voting requirement — said it is “consulting attorneys and considering legal actions” to block the new option. Ritchie had to see those clouds coming. The DFL secretary of state’s previous tangles with Republicans and their allies over ballot question wording and voter fraud served ample warning that a unilateral approach to online registration would meet with GOP criticism and possibly a court challenge.

Editorials: Yes, the new Pennsylvania Voter ID ad campaign is about confusing people | Philadelphia Weekly

The Inquirer noted yesterday that the Pennsylvania Department of State has decided to relaunch its $1 million Voter ID advertising campaign despite voters not needing to show identification at the polls for the upcoming November election. You remember: the “Show It” ads that popped up on TV in the summer and fall of 2012. Critics have contended they’re misleading and unnecessarily cost the taxpayers money since the voter ID law they’re meant to bring attention to is tied up in court. And the critics are right. Using government dollars to tell people to show identification at the polls this year is at best disingenuous. At worst, it’s a malicious attempt to use the idea of a voter identification law to keep eligible voters confused and at home on Election Day, perhaps proving this was the law’s intention all along.

Texas: Civil rights attorney on voter ID law: ‘Everybody knows somebody | KLTV

A national civil rights attorney made stops in East Texas Monday, visiting with communities about Texas’ new voter ID law. Sonia Gill is an attorney representing the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a group that has filed a lawsuit to repeal the recently implemented law. She said her priority during her stops in Longview and Mt. Pleasant today was to make sure voters know what to expect in upcoming elections. “When I go out and speak to some of the churches, everybody knows somebody who’s going to have a problem getting documents required to vote,” Gill said. Texas recently re-implemented the law, after the Supreme Court narrowly overturned part of the Voting Rights Act. Those provisions required Texas to clear any new voting laws with the federal government.

Washington: Voters to decide ‘initiative on initiatives’ | Capital Press

Washington state residents have plenty of experience voting on new law proposals, but next month they’ll decide on an “initiative on initiatives” that would make it easier to get such measures on the ballot. The proposal, Initiative 517, was sparked in part by a series of legal battles over local measures seeking to block red light cameras, including one case last year that went to the state Supreme Court. By requiring that voters be allowed to have their say on any proposal that qualifies for the ballot, even if a lawsuit has been filed against it, the initiative pushes back at cities that have sued — some successfully — to block local challenges to the cameras. “Initiative power is not subject to pre-election challenges,” said Mark Baerwaldt, a spokesman for the campaign. “It’s the way the will of the people is expressed.” The initiative also would give supporters a year, instead of the current six months, to collect signatures, and it would make it a misdemeanor to interfere with the signature-gathering process. Business groups and others have lined up in opposition, saying the proposal will affect their ability to deal with nuisances outside of their stores.

Wisconsin: Milwaukee man pleads guilty to five counts of voter fraud | Journal Sentinel

A Milwaukee man pleaded guilty Monday to illegally voting five times last year in West Milwaukee, when in fact he did not have residency there. Leonard K. Brown, 56, still faces a charge of voting twice in the November presidential election and making a false statement to an election official on election day. Those cases have been rescheduled for trial in January. His sentencing on the five convictions resulting from Monday’s pleas will be scheduled sometime after that trial. Brown was among 10 people charged in March with a variety of charges related to voter fraud. He is charged with voting twice in the Nov. 6 election — in person in Milwaukee on that date and by absentee ballot in West Milwaukee four days earlier.

Afghanistan: Votes sell for about $5 in Afghanistan as presidential race begins | Thomson Reuters

Sayed Gul walked into a small mud brick room in eastern Afghanistan, a bundle wrapped in a shawl on his back. With a flick, he plonked the package onto a threadbare carpet and hundreds of voter cards spilled out. “How many do you want to buy?” he asked with a grin. Like many others, Gul left a routine job – in his case, repairing cars in Marco, a small town in the east – to join a thriving industry selling the outcome of next year’s presidential elections. Gul, who had a long, black beard and was dressed in the traditional loose salwar kameez, said he was able to buy voter cards for 200 Pakistani rupees ($1.89) each from villagers and sell them on for 500 rupees ($4.73) to campaign managers, who can use them in connivance with poll officials to cast seemingly legitimate votes. From each card, Gul said, he made enough money to pay for a hearty meal like kebabs with rice, and maybe even a soda.

Editorials: Azerbaijan’s ‘AppGate’ | Al Jazeera

Few people honestly thought that Azerbaijan stood a serious chance of conducting a fair and free presidential election on October 9. As I have written extensively, since the beginning of the year, Azerbaijani authorities have been engaged in an unprecedented crackdown to silence all forms of criticism and dissent. The underlying climate simply did not allow for a fair competition – not to mention that Azerbaijan has not held a single authentically democratic election since Aliyev came to power in 2003. Still, the brazen nature of the electoral violations that took place surprised even close observers of Azerbaijan. A day before the election, Meydan TV, a satellite/Internet television station, broke the story that set the tone for the whole election, which became known as the “AppGate” scandal. Meydan TV exposed an apparent fault of the Central Election Commission’s mobile phone application to allow users to track election results. On October 8, Meydan TV discovered that the results section of the application was showing, giving incumbent President Ilham Aliyev 72.76 percent of the vote before a single vote had been cast.

Maldives: Supreme Court’s annulment verdict “troubling” given ongoing international criticism of judiciary: Bar Human Rights Committee | Minivan News

The UK’s Bar Human Rights Committee (BHRC) has expressed concern at the annulment of the first round of presidential elections, stating that such a verdict was “particularly troubling in the context of the ongoing international criticism concerning the lack of independence of the Maldivian judiciary and the lack of adequate separation of powers.” The BHRC conducted independent observations of the trial of former President Mohamed Nasheed in the Hulhumale Magistrate Court earlier this year, a trial the MDP presidential candidate contended was a politically-motivated attempt to bar him from contesting the upcoming election. The BHRC concurred in its observation report: “BHRC is concerned that a primary motivation behind the present trial is a desire by those in power to exclude Mr Nasheed from standing in the 2013 elections, and notes international opinion that this would not be a positive outcome for the Maldives,” wrote observer Stephen Cragg on behalf of the BHRC, the international human rights arm of the Bar of England and Wales. In its most recent statement, the BHRC noted that the Supreme Court’s verdict to annul the September 7 election, in which Nasheed received 45.45 percent of the popular vote, “runs contrary to the conclusions of national and international election monitors, including the expert Commonwealth Observer Group, which confirmed that the electoral process was free, fair, well-organised and transparent. BHRC further notes with concern that the Court’s verdict appears to have been based on an unsubstantiated and as yet undisclosed police report.”

National: Judge: my voter ID ruling was wrong | Politico

A federal appeals court judge said Friday that he erred when writing a decision which served as a key precursor to the Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling upholding the constitutionality of Indiana’s voter ID law. In an interview Friday on HuffPostLive, Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner said his opinion finding the Indiana law constitutional was mistaken, due to the court not having sufficient information about how the law could be used to prevent or discourage people from voting. “Do you think that the court got this one wrong?” HuffPo’s Mike Sacks asked. “Yes. Absolutely. And the problem is that there hadn’t been that much activity with voter identification,” Posner said. “Maybe we should have been more imaginative….We weren’t really given strong indications that requiring additional voter identification would actually disfranchise people entitled to vote.”

Editorials: The Supreme Court needs to get smarter about politics | Trevor Potter/The Washington Post

At one point during the oral argument Tuesday in the case of McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, Justice Antonin Scalia remarked that he didn’t understand the legislation in question. “This campaign finance law is so intricate that I can’t figure it out,” he said. “It might have been nice to have the, you know, the lower court tell me what the law is.” Scalia meant to be playful. But as the argument progressed, it became clear that the justices really don’t know enough about money in politics. They expressed skepticism about “wild hypotheticals that are not obviously plausible” — when in fact we’ve already seen those scenarios play out. They talked a lot about the FEC’s “earmarking” and “coordination” rules, but they didn’t seem to recognize that those rules are impossible to police and that a dysfunctional FEC isn’t doing much policing anyway. And the conservatives on the court seemed to fail to understand what leads to corruption or the appearance of corruption — with Justice Samuel Alito going so far as to suggest that giving a very large check to a political fundraising committee isn’t inherently a problem, because the committee could take the money and burn it. “Well, they’re not,” replied Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. “They are not going to burn it.”

Arizona: Kansas: 2 States Plan 2-Tier System for Balloting | New York Times

Barred by the Supreme Court from requiring proof of citizenship for federal elections, Arizona is complying — but setting up a separate registration system for local and state elections that will demand such proof. The state this week joined Kansas in planning for such a two-tiered voting system, which could keep thousands of people from participating in state and local elections, including next year’s critical cycle, when top posts in both states will be on the ballot. The states are using an opening left in June by the United States Supreme Court when it said that the power of Congress over federal elections was paramount but did not rule on proof of citizenship in state elections. Such proof was required under Arizona’s Proposition 200, which passed in 2004 and is one of the weapons in the border state’s arsenal of laws enacted in its battle against illegal immigration. The two states are also jointly suing the federal Election Assistance Commission, arguing that it should change the federal voter registration form for their states to include state citizenship requirements. While the agency has previously denied such requests, the justices said the states could try again and seek judicial review of those decisions. “If you require evidence of citizenship, it helps prevent people who are not citizens from voting, and I simply don’t see a problem with that,” said Tom Horne, the Arizona attorney general.

California: Brown nixes Democrats-friendly initiative reform measure | Washington Post

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has vetoed a measure that would have severely limited the ability of wealthy activists and corporations to use paid signature gatherers to get initiatives on the ballot. The measure, Assembly Bill 857, would have required 10 percent of signatures for any given ballot initiative to be collected by volunteers, rather than by paid signature gatherers. The number of signatures supporters need to turn in is based on the number of votes in the last gubernatorial election; that means groups would have to rely on volunteers to gather a little more than 50,000 of the 504,760 valid signatures required to get an initiative on the ballot. “The initiative process is far from perfect and monied interests have historically manipulated it at will,” Brown wrote [pdf] in a veto message. “Requiring a specific threshold of signatures to be gathered by volunteers will not stop abuses by narrow special interests — particularly if ‘volunteer’ is defined with broad exemptions as in this bill.”

Editorials: Raise filing fee to weed out recreational Minneapolis candidates | Star Tribune

In mayoral contests, as in many human endeavors, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. That’s the problem vexing Minneapolis voters this fall. Political choice is good, but settling on first, second and third choices from a list of 35 candidates for mayor is daunting for even the most politically attuned voter. And the mayoral race is only the beginning. Voters also must study and sort 10 candidates for three at-large seats on the Parks and Recreation Board, four for two seats on the Board of Estimate and Taxation, and in most wards, between three and six contenders for City Council. Many factors contributed to this year’s unprecedented wave of candidacies. It’s the first Minneapolis election in 20 years without an incumbent mayor on the ballot. The dominant DFL Party is divided in some wards and did not endorse a candidate for mayor, prolonging some candidacies past what would have been their usual expiration point. The willingness of so many nominal DFLers to run for the same office might fairly be seen as a reflection of the latter-day DFL’s undisciplined condition.

Pennsylvania: Voter ID ad campaign is back, Democrats say it’s misleading | Philadelphia Inquirer

The Department of State has relaunched its controversial advertising campaign to educate voters about the yet-to-be-implemented voter ID law. Only this time, Pennsylvania taxpayers are footing the bill and some lawmakers are not happy about it. The $1 million “Show it” ad campaign is airing statewide on TV, radio and Internet with some targeted ads to Hispanic TV and radio and black radio and some print ads in Spanish language, and other non-English newspapers, said Department of State spokesman Ron Ruman. The funding was part of the 2013-2014 state budget, he said. Some opponents of the law called on Secretary of State Carol Aichele to pull the “misleading” ads. “If one individual is under the impression that they will not be permitted to vote without a photo ID and stays home on November 5, that is one person too many,” said Sen. Matt Smith (D., Allegheny). In a letter to Aichele, Smith called the department’s action “troubling” and “confusing” and suggested that the money instead go toward advertisements that detail where and how voters can obtain free photo identification — without mentioning identification requirements.

Pennsylvania: State joins coalition to clean up voter rolls | TribLIVE

Pennsylvania has joined a multi-state alliance that aims to clean up voter rolls by identifying people registered in more than one state and dead people who remain on registration lists. A mobile society makes it “important that election officials use available tools to make sure only legally registered individuals vote,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele said in August when Pennsylvania joined. About half of all states, led by Kansas, belong to the coalition, which cross-checks voters’ names. States compile registration lists at the end of each year to check for duplicates.

Virginia: Democrats fight purge of voter rolls ordered weeks before election | Washington Times

Election officials across Virginia are grappling with how to follow through with a directive from the State Board of Elections to purge up to 57,000 registered voters from the state rolls — a move that has prompted a lawsuit from the Democratic Party of Virginia and outright defiance by at least one registrar. The state, working this year for the first time as part of a multistate program intended to validate voters, says it is required by law to conduct maintenance on voter lists and is not canceling voters but directing local registrars to review registrants carefully. The program provides information to election boards about voters who are registered in more than one state. But the timing of the move — weeks before the state’s gubernatorial election — has raised eyebrows. The state Democratic Party filed a lawsuit this month and asked a federal court for an injunction. A high number of registered voters and a large turnout generally are considered to be advantages for Democrats. A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 18 — three days after the voter registration deadline passes in Virginia.

Washington: Voters will weigh in on measure that would expand rights of initiative signature gathers | Associated Press

Washington state residents have plenty of experience voting on new law proposals, but next month they’ll decide on an “initiative on initiatives” that would make it easier to get such measures on the ballot. The proposal, Initiative 517, was sparked in part by a series of legal battles over local measures seeking to block red light cameras, including one case last year that went to the state Supreme Court. By requiring that voters be allowed to have their say on any proposal that qualifies for the ballot, even if a lawsuit has been filed against it, the initiative pushes back at cities that have sued — some successfully — to block local challenges to the cameras. “Initiative power is not subject to pre-election challenges,” said Mark Baerwaldt, a spokesman for the campaign. “It’s the way the will of the people is expressed.” The initiative also would give supporters a year, instead of the current six months, to collect signatures, and it would make it a misdemeanor to interfere with the signature-gathering process.

Myanmar: Parliament Told to Make Quick Decision on Electoral System | Radio Free Asia

The head of Myanmar’s election body asked parliament Friday to decide by the end of the year whether the country’s electoral system should be changed to one of proportional representation as proposed by some groups, saying an early decision would enable authorities to prepare ahead of the 2015 polls. Election Commission Chairman Tin Aye said basic rules for the upcoming general elections would be written by December, assuring that the polls would be “free and fair” unlike the 2010 elections held under military rule and which had been criticized by various groups. “I don’t want to have the bitter experience like that of the 2010 elections. I will make my commission members skillful and will educate the people ahead of the 2015 elections,” he said at a meeting with leaders of 36 political parties in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon.

Czech Republic: A election with consequences | openDemocracy

Only a few months ago, no one would have expected that 2013 would turn out to be an election “super-year” for the Czech Republic. The first-ever presidential elections took place in January, while legislative elections were originally scheduled for the spring of 2014. But then the political scandal broke involving Prime Minister Petr Necas. The whole cabinet was forced to resign, and as it was replaced by the technocratic government of Jiri Rusnok (a man loyal to president Milos Zeman), it started to become clear that the country was heading towards a period of unusual political instability. The new cabinet failed to win a confidence vote and MPs eventually voted to dissolve the parliament, triggering early elections. Two main issues stand out in the forthcoming elections  – the emergence of three to four new parties likely to win seats in the parliament, and the ambiguous role of President Milos Zeman.

Guinea: U.N. voices concern over delay to Guinea election results | Reuters

The United Nations and the international community on Sunday called upon Guinea’s electoral commission to publish results of a September 28 election aimed at completing a transition to democracy, saying it was concerned over the delay. Disputes over a published partial count have held up the final result and raised fears of a resurgence of violence that killed about 50 people before the vote. The opposition is calling for the election to be annulled, dampening hopes for an end to years of instability since a 2008 military coup that deterred investment in the world’s largest bauxite exporter. The United Nations and representatives of the international community including the West African regional bloc ECOWAS, the European Union and the International Organisation of the Francophonie, which brokered a deal with the opposition to end protests and allow the legislative vote, said they were concerned by delays in the publication of the results.

Iraq: Political Factions Divided Over New Electoral Law | Al-Monitor

With the approach of every Iraqi election season, the country plunges into widespread controversy about the election law and about how it should be amended. The threats between the various political blocs escalate, with some hinting that they will boycott the election. These debates have typically ended by either returning to the previous law or by a political settlement that guarantees the interests of all the parties. That scene happened during the past few weeks as Iraqi political forces tried to amend the law that would govern the 2014 parliamentary elections because there was not a fixed electoral law in Iraq, allowing parliament the right to change the law each electoral season or to amend earlier laws. President of the Iraqi Kurdistan region Massoud Barzani said that the Kurdish parties might boycott the elections if their suggestions about the law were ignored. The Kurds have proposed to distribute the “compensatory seats” according to the voters’ proportions and to make Iraq a single voting district. The Kurds believe this will give them additional seats because of the increase in percentage of votes in Kurdish governorates compared to Arab ones.

Poland: Ruling Party May Avoid Warsaw Mayor Recall on Low Turnout | Bloomberg

Poland’s ruling party may have avoided the ouster of Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz after polls showed yesterday’s recall vote fell short of the minimum turnout required. About 26.8 percent of Warsaw’s 1.33 million registered voters cast ballots in the recall referendum, less than the minimum 389,430, or 29 percent, required to validate the measure, according to a late exit poll by Warsaw-based researcher TNS for broadcaster TVN24. Official results will be released by the State Election Commission later today. Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his ruling Civic Platform party called on supporters to block the recall by boycotting the referendum. Of those who voted, 95 percent favored recalling Gronkiewicz-Waltz, a deputy chairman of the ruling party who had angered Varsovians with utility-price increases and delays in public works. Her support is dropping as backing for the party, the first to win back-to-back elections since the fall of communism in 1989, dropped below the opposition Law and Justice for the first time in six years.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly October 7-13 2013

azerbaijanThe Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging aggregate limits on political contributions. Arizona and Kansas announced plans to set up a separate registration system for local and state elections that will demand proof of citizenship not required on Federal voter registration forms. Plans to purge voter rolls are being challenged in Florida and Virginia. A Federal judge in Hawaii heard arguments challenging open primaries in the State. The Azerbaijani Central Election Commission released election results showing President Ilham Aliyev winning 73 percent of the vote a day before the election. And the Indian Supreme Court  has directed the country’s Election Commission to add voter verifiable paper audit trail printers to electronic voting machines.

Michigan: 6 ways to fix long voting lines, and 6 Grand Rapids polling places still at risk | MLive.com

Long voting lines at some Grand Rapids polling places during the November 2012 presidential election were caused by many factors, a task force led by two former U.S. attorneys reported this week to city commissioners. … Too many poll workers were inadequately trained for the job. The city should recruit workers with laptop computer skills, and increase pay for workers who are bilingual or proficient in use of the e-poll book. The city also should hire a training consultant to help the city clerk develop a new training model for poll workers, and then evaluate workers to determine whether or not they should be hired again for the next election.

National: States joining forces to scrub voter rolls | Associated Press

More than half of states are now working in broad alliances to scrub voter rolls of millions of questionable registrations, identifying people registered in multiple states and tens of thousands of dead voters who linger on election lists. Poll managers are looking for more states to get involved and say the efforts are necessary because outdated voter registration systems are unable to keep up with a society where people frequently move from one state to another. While many of the registration problems are innocent, some election leaders fear the current disorder within the system is inviting trouble. “It creates an environment where there could be more problems,” said Scott Gessler, the Republican secretary of state in Colorado. “It’s a precursor to potential fraud, there’s no doubt about it.” Half of all states have now joined a consortium anchored by the state of Kansas, compiling their voter registration lists at the end of every year to assess for duplicates. That program has grown rapidly since beginning in 2005 in an agreement between four Midwestern states. Meanwhile, seven states are coordinating on another project that makes those assessments more frequently with advanced algorithms _ while also checking for deceased voters.

Arizona: Not All Voters Equal as States Move to Two-Tier Ballots | Bloomberg

Arizona and Kansas, where top state posts come up for grabs next year, are creating two-tiered voting systems to bar some residents from casting ballots in all but congressional races unless they prove they’re U.S. citizens. The dual methods are in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that bars Arizona from rejecting federal voter-registration forms that don’t include proof of citizenship, which is required by both states. To comply, both plan to provide those voters with ballots listing just federal races. “It is quite likely going to disenfranchise a number of voters,” said Julie Ebenstein, a lawyer with the Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York. “It is going to cause a lot of expense to county election officials and confusion.”

Florida: Voter purging in Florida and Virginia leads to lawsuits | Facing South

We’re a little under a month away from Election Day, which for some means time to prepare for early voting. For others, it means time to start purging names from voter rolls. Two Southern states, Florida and Virginia, are facing lawsuits after launching (or in Florida’s case, relaunching) controversial programs that could lead to thousands of voters’ names getting stripped from voting lists. In Virginia, the purging has already started. Voters from these states who may have failed to update their voter registration information — or who ended up on the purge lists by mistake — might show up at the polls during early voting or Election Day only to find that they can’t vote. This was a problem last year in Florida that civil rights advocates thought they had resolved. Gov. Rick Scott and Secretary of State Ken Detzner started a purge program last summer. They tried to use the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, which tracks welfare benefits for immigrants, but DHS would not allow it. So instead they turned to state driving records.