Florida: Revised try at purging noncitizen voters draws legal fire | www.palmbeachpost.com

Two Miami-Dade County voters and Hispanic voting groups have asked a federal judge to halt Gov. Rick Scott’s revised to purge voter rolls of non-citizens, saying it comes too close to the Nov. 6 election and remains problematic. Lawyers for Karla Vanessa Arcia and Melande Antoine and a variety of voting-rights groups including the Florida Immigrant Coalition and the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights, filed the request in a federal court in Miami Wednesday night. The groups reached a settlement with Scott’s administration last week and dropped three other portions of their complaint but now are asking Judge William Zloch to stop the effort. Secretary of State Ken Detzner last month revamped the effort, the subject of multiple lawsuits, and switched to using the federal Department of Homeland Security Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or “SAVE,” database to vet a list of potential noncitizens. The list had been created by matching state driver’s licenses and voter registration records. Detzner said the federal database will result in a less problematic list than one sent to elections supervisors in April. State and local officials abandoned the purge this spring after it was discovered that many of the flagged 2,626 voters were naturalized citizens — including Arcia and Antoine — and, therefore, eligible to vote.

Florida: State Agrees to Let Citizens Mistakenly Purged From Rolls to Vote | NYTimes.com

In a partial victory for voter rights and immigrant groups, Florida residents who were mistakenly removed from the voter rolls this year because the state classified them as noncitizens will be returned to the rolls and allowed to vote in November. The Florida Department of State, which initiated the review of noncitizens on the voter rolls, also agreed Wednesday to inform the 2,625 people on the list who are eligible to vote that their voting rights had been fully restored. Still unresolved is whether Florida broke a federal law preventing voter purges within 90 days of an election. The agreement stems from a lawsuit brought by several groups that said the so-called voter purge was discriminatory because it singled out mostly immigrants. “There will be no purging before the election,” said Katherine Culliton-González, director of voter protection for the Advancement Project, one of the civil rights groups that sued the state. “American citizens won’t be purged, and naturalized citizens won’t be purged. For us, it’s a great victory.”

Washington: State can’t use Homeland Security records to check voter lists | Spokesman.com

Washington can’t use immigrant registration records from the U.S. Homeland Security Department to verify names on its voter rolls, state elections officials said today. The reason: The state doesn’t have a system that requires proof of legal residence before issuing a driver’s license, which is necessary to use the federal system. Secretary of State Sam Reed requested access to the federal system in July as a way of checking the accuracy of the state’s voter rolls. But to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program, which is designed to determine whether a person qualifies for different social and medical programs, the state would need to issue some sort of identification card that checks for legal immigration status.

Colorado: Secretary of State’s effort to purge voter lists continues | Northglenn Sentinel News

Almost 90 percent of a group of Colorado voters identified as noncitizens may be legal voters. According to an analysis by the Secretary of State’s Office, about 87.5 percent of the 3,903 people identified through a voter-roll comparison to state Department of Motor Vehicle records may be legal voters. Those identified as noncitizens had presented a noncitizen document to obtain a Colorado driver’s license or identification card. They were sent letters asking them to voluntarily withdraw their voter registration. Rich Coolidge, communications director in the Secretary of State’s Office, said 643 of them had Jefferson and Adams county addresses. The Secretary of State’s analysis showed that about 25.9 percent of the addressees had moved with no forwarding address. An additional 482 voters affirmed their citizenship, while only 16 voluntarily withdrew their voter registration. As of Aug. 31, the remaining 2,394 voters had not responded to the letters.

Colorado: Voter Purges Net Few Noncitizens, So Far | Minnesota Public Radio News

States using a federal immigration database to purge noncitizens from voter lists are starting to get results, which so far include few illegal voters. In Florida, which was first to gain access to the database after fighting the federal government in court, an initial run of roughly 2,600 names has turned up “several” violators, according to a spokesman for Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner. “We are seeing that there are definitely noncitizens on the voter rolls, but we’re still very early in this review process,” says Chris Cate. A much larger list of suspected noncitizens soon will be fed through the database, Cate says. The list will be an updated version culled from cross-checking voter rolls and driver’s license data, a method that produced about 180,000 names last year. Colorado, which along with Florida was initially denied access to the database, says that an automated check of more than 1,400 names has flagged 177 people as possible noncitizens. Colorado has asked the Department of Homeland Security, which maintains the database, to assign a person to verify their status. “For the moment, we have no confirmed noncitizens, but I would expect that most of those people would come back as noncitizens,” says Andrew Cole, a spokesman for Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler.

Editorials: Florida election laws threaten the vote in a key swing state | The Washington Post

In 2011, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed into law a measure that imposed more than 75 restrictions on Florida voters, ostensibly to combat voter fraud. These included requirements that make it more difficult for third-party organizations to register voters, limits on early voting and a plan to purge voter rolls of non-citizens. As with many of the voter limitations imposed by Republican state governments since they won election in 2010, these measures are likely to favor Republican candidates — and Florida is the ultimate swing state. Thankfully, a federal judge in Florida has issued a preliminary injunction against the law, which would interfere with the ability of organizations like the League of Women Voters to register voters in time for the election.

Florida: Secretary of State Detzner says Florida voter purge to resume soon | RealClearPolitics

The state’s top election official said Tuesday that he expects Florida’s efforts to purge non-citizens from voter registration rolls to soon resume and be completed before the Nov. 6 general election. Florida is on the verge of getting access to an immigration database from the federal Department of Homeland Security, Secretary of State Ken Detzner said shortly after polls opened for the state’s primary election. Republican Gov. Rick Scott began the push to rid Florida’s voting rolls of illegally registered non-citizens, but Homeland Security initially declined to help. Federal officials, however, said they’d make the database available after a federal judge refused to halt the purge, but both sides are still working on the details of a final agreement. “We are making some progress, just recently, the last few days in actually getting access to the database,” Detzner said.

Florida: DoJ seeks Florida voter-purge records | TBO.com

The U.S. Department of Justice is demanding that Hillsborough turn over voter-purge records, pulling the county into a growing legal fracas over Gov. Rick Scott’s push to clean out the state’s voter registry. The county received a subpoena Wednesday for documents dating to Jan. 1 relating to any efforts at identifying voters as potential noncitizens. The subpoena stems from a lawsuit filed June 12 in Tallahassee by the federal government against Florida and Secretary of State Ken Detzner over state efforts to scrub voter rolls. Hillsborough Elections Supervisor Earl Lennard said he would comply with the subpoena. Like supervisors across the state, Lennard halted efforts to purge voters when the tools to cross-reference citizenship and voter registration — a Department of Homeland Security database and motor vehicle records — proved unreliable, he said.

National: Voter Roll Purges Could Spread To At Least 12 States | Huffington Post

When John Rossler showed up at a mid-July gathering of the nation’s top election officials in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he delivered the kind of big election news that can easily get lost. Rossler is a U.S. Department of Homeland Security official who oversees a collection of immigrant information databases known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program. Rossler told the group that he was prepared to grant access to SAVE, even though the system was not designed to help states verify voter eligibility. And, when the meeting in San Juan was over, two very different views of what happened emerged. In one, the bedrock of American democracy had suddenly been rescued from the threat of non-citizens on the nation’s voter rolls, several state election agencies said in interviews with The Huffington Post. In the other, voting rights advocates insist that as many as 27.4 million Americans in at least 14 states interested in accessing SAVE are suddenly facing the prospect of the kind of deeply flawed effort to identify voter fraud that drew national attention to Florida in June. Fourteen states have expressed interest in SAVE, and while most are developing plans to use it, two say they will not engage in a Florida-style voter purge.

Colorado: Gessler could be pivotal in battleground Colorado | NBC Politics

Scott Gessler isn’t a household name in national politics, but could become famous in a hurry, just as Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris did during the 2000 presidential recount. Colorado’s swing state pattern in the last five presidential elections makes its nine electoral votes loom large this November. And, as Colorado’s Republican secretary of state, elected in 2010, Gessler could have a decisive influence on the November outcome in the state. He has launched efforts to remove ineligible people from the voter rolls. And if it’s a close vote, he would preside over any recount and be the official who certifies the state’s electoral vote to the U.S. House of Representatives after the election. Gessler scored a victory last week when the Department of Homeland Security agreed to let his agency to use DHS databases of non-citizens to cross-check the list of Colorado voters to ensure that non-citizens are not registered.

Iowa: Secretary of State wants to purge voter rolls of non-citizens | Radio Iowa

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz wants to check the state’s voter registration rolls against a federal database to make sure non-citizens aren’t casting votes in Iowa elections. Schultz has already checked the lists of registered Iowa voters against lists of people who are here legally on visas or green cards, but who aren’t U.S. citizens. “I don’t have the exact number off the top of my head, but I can tell you there were more than a thousand hits,” he says. The “hits” came when Schultz compared voter registration rolls with Iowa Department of Transportation records, because legal non-citizens — who have a visa or a green card — can get a drivers license.

Florida: Scott, Election Officials Spar Over Ineligible Voters | CBS Miami

Gov. Rick Scott and Florida’s 67 election supervisors are at odds over removing ineligible voters from registration rolls. After winning access to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security database of those ineligible voters, Gov. Scott doesn’t understand why the election supervisors don’t want to get back to removing those voters from the rolls. “You know, it’s very reliable data, so I can’t imagine they’re not going to go forward and make sure,” Scott told CNN on Monday. “‘Cause I don’t know anybody – any supervisor of elections or anybody in our state – that thinks non-U.S. citizens ought to be voting in our races.” Many of the election supervisors resisted the voter database purge, so it is no surprise that supervisors are hesitant to trust the new lists. Supervisors like Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall insist on reviewing the lists first – especially given elections are less than four months away. “My worst nightmare is we get close to a presidential election, and someone challenges maybe 100,000 possible non-citizens at the polls on Election Day,” said McFall. “If that happens, we won’t get our results for weeks.”

Ohio: Husted asks feds for immigration database for voters’ citizenship verification | cleveland.com

Ohio has requested access to a massive federal immigration database so election officials can verify voters’ citizenship. Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted acknowledged the sensitivity of immigration issues but said the information, which he requested, would be valuable in unique situations when a voter’s citizenship is called into question. The database would not be used on a widespread basis to purge Ohio’s voter rolls of non-citizens, he said. “I feel like I have an obligation to pursue this to make sure we have all the tools necessary to make sure the integrity of the election system is upheld,” Husted said. Husted’s request comes at a volatile time. The hotly contested presidential election has put a spotlight on voting rights issues across the country, and there already have been accusations in Ohio of voter suppression tactics by GOP lawmakers aimed at poor and minority voters. Just this week, President Barack Obama’s re-election team sued Husted to allow in-person voting the three days before Election Day. Voting rights advocates cautioned Husted to use the information carefully.

Texas: State wants access to federal database of immigrants to check voter rolls | The Dallas Morning News

Texas officials plan to join a growing number of states across the country seeking access to a massive immigration database to check voter rolls for possible non-citizens, officials confirmed Wednesday. Texas Secretary of State officials were drafting a letter Wednesday formally requesting access to the Department of Homeland Security database, which contains more than 100 million immigration records, said Rich Parsons, an agency spokesman. Texas Secretary of State Esperanza “Hope” Andrade, an appointee of Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry, is the latest GOP elections leader to request access to the database since Homeland Security officials last week granted Florida permission to use the database. The Obama administration initially opposed granting Florida access, but relented after a judge ruled in the state’s favor on a separate issue related to its efforts to purge non-citizens from its voting rolls. Since then, election leaders in nearly a dozen states have expressed interest in gaining access to the DHS database. But opponents of the move argue the database was never designed to be used as tool to purge voter rolls.

Florida: Voter purge fight isn’t over | The Washington Post

The federal government is letting Florida use a Department of Homeland Security database of noncitizens to help purge voters from the state’s rolls. But voting rights activists say the fight over Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s controversial purge is far from over. Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) listens during the 2011 Governors Summit of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on June 20 in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)The agreement, a victory for Republicans, comes after months of back-and-forth between Scott’s administration and the federal government over access to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, which is designed to determine eligibility for benefits — not voting. Republican administrations across the country are cracking down on potential voter fraud, mostly through more restrictive voter ID laws. The Department of Justice has been fighting many of these efforts, with the support of Democrats who argue that the real goal is to disenfranchise poor and minority voters. Florida is being closely watched by both sides because the attempt to proactively remove ineligible voters from the rolls goes a step beyond other states’ efforts.

Florida: State unlikely to remove voters before primary | MiamiHerald.com

Florida’s election supervisors are unlikely to remove any potentially ineligible voters before the Aug. 14 primary. In a move seen as a victory for Gov. Rick Scott, the state last week got approval to access a federal immigration database to check the citizenship status of voters. The state has been pushing to compare its voter rolls with the federal database for months even as it proceeds with its own push to identify and remove voters who are not U.S. citizens. But the state association that represents Florida’s county elections supervisors will urge its members to move slowly. Vicki Davis, the Martin County Supervisor of Elections and the association president, said on Tuesday that she was urging caution because it is unclear if the state can take all steps necessary to carry out a new agreement with the federal government before early voting starts next month. “We all agree our voter rolls need to be clean and up to date,” Davis said. “I think we need to move forward slowly and cautiously with the process. We’re not expecting the process to begin until after the primary election.”

Florida: Elections supervisors in wait and see mode over new lists | The News-Press

After winning access to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security database of non-citizens living in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott said he sees no reason why the state’s 67 elections supervisors shouldn’t return to removing ineligible voters from the rolls. But the supervisors, many of whom have resisted the purge, say they’re not ready to trust the new lists without reviewing them first – especially with less than four months remaining until the November election. “My worst nightmare is we get close to a presidential election, and someone challenges maybe 100,000 possible non-citizens at the polls on Election Day,” said Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall. “If that happens, we won’t get our results for weeks.”

Florida: State Gains Access to Homeland Security List | NYTimes.com

In a victory for Republicans, the federal government has agreed to let Florida use a law enforcement database to challenge people’s right to vote if they are suspected of not being U.S. citizens. The agreement, made in a letter to Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s administration that was obtained by The Associated Press, grants the state access to a list of resident noncitizens maintained by the Homeland Security Department. The Obama administration had denied Florida’s request for months but relented after a judge ruled in the state’s favor in a related voter-purge matter. Voting rights groups, while acknowledging that noncitizens have no right to vote, have expressed alarm about using such data for a purpose not originally intended: purging voter lists of ineligible people. They also say voter purges less than four months before a presidential election might leave insufficient time to correct mistakes stemming from faulty data or other problems.

Voting Blogs: Florida Secretary of State Admits Identifying “Potential Non-citizens” using “Obsolete” Data | electionsmith

Of course, you wouldn’t know that reading the completely misleading headline in the “AP NewsBreak” story rushed to publication by theWashington Post and numerous other outlets. The real headline should be, “Florida Secretary of State Admits Identifying “Potential Noncitizens with ‘Outdated’ Data.” The pending agreement with the Department of Homeland Security is hardly a “victory” for the GOP, as the Washington Post’s headline screams. It is true that the Department of Homeland Security reached a pending agreement with the Florida Department of State to allow the Division of Elections to access the federal SAVE database — Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements — so as to more accurately identify “potential noncitizens” who might be incorrectly registered to vote in Florida. (Lord knows, the Florida Secretary of State needs help in its endeavors, as I’ve recently documented elsewhere, extensively.

Colorado: Suthers asks Homeland Security chief to verify voters’ citizenship | The Denver Post

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler is intensifying efforts to root out and remove any noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls before the November election — and this time, he has the backing of Attorney General John Suthers and top elections officials in 11 other states. Gessler and Suthers sent separate letters to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Monday, again asking DHS to help verify the citizenship status of about 5,000 Colorado voters. Suthers’ letter also states that DHS is required under federal law to provide the information, and that the U.S. Supreme Court reiterated that requirement in its recent decision on Arizona’s immigration law.

Florida: Judge halts federal attempt to block voter purge | MiamiHerald.com

A judge on Wednesday rejected the federal government’s attempt to block Florida’s voter purge of non-U.S. citizens, partly because the purge has been suspended. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle said federal laws that prohibit the systematic removal of voters close to an election do not refer to noncitizens. He also accepted the state’s claim that its purging efforts are over for now. The ruling came as part of a request by the U.S. Department of Justice, which sought a retraining order stopping the purge efforts. The agency argued that the purge violates a federal law, the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which outlaws systematic removals of voters less than 90 days before a federal election. Florida’s primary is Aug. 14. Hinkle interpreted the law to refer to people who were lawfully registered to vote before being removed, such as felons or the deceased. He said the law is silent as to noncitizens.

Florida: State moves to block voter-registration group | MiamiHerald.com

State officials are considering ways to stop a Washington nonprofit from sending any more registration forms to voters. By their own estimate, officials with a Washington nonprofit have registered 200,000 voters in Florida the past eight years. This year, the same group, the Voter Participation Center, has mailed another 420,000 registration forms to residents hoping to enlist more. But state officials are considering ways to stop the center from sending any more registration forms, which the state calls confusing. “We have contacted the organization, expressed our very serious concern that they are misleading voters, offered to provide them the complaints sent to the department about their mailings, and asked that they make a concerted effort to improve their lists so that only eligible voters who aren’t registered are being contacted,” Chris Cate, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office said in an email to the Times. The objections come as the state has made other moves to block greater access to the ballot box.

Florida: Voter purge explained | The Washington Post

Laws designed to clamp down on voter fraud have been causing controversy all over the country. But in Florida, an attempt sparked by Gov. Rick Scott (R) to remove non-citizens from the voter rolls has become particularly heated, devolving into dueling lawsuits, with officials refusing to carry out directives from the secretary of state. The Department of Justice is suing the state over the purge. Florida is suing the Department of Homeland Security. What happened? As the Miami Herald reported, Scott became interested in the number of non-citizen voters early in his tenure. The state wanted to use the Department of Homeland Security‘s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, but federal officials denied access. Instead, the state elections board relied on the information from the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to determine citizenship. Then-Secretary of State Kurt Browning abandoned the effort, saying the data was too flawed. (For example, some people gain citizenship after getting a driver’s license. Some names on the list were simply there by mistake.)

Florida: Florida to sue Department of Homeland Security in voter registration battle | The Hill

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) said he will sue the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to move forward with his controversial attempt to purge the voter rolls in his state of ineligible voters. “I have a job to do to defend the right of legitimate voters,” Scott told Fox News on Monday. “We’ve been asking for the Department of Homeland Security’s database, SAVE, for months, and they haven’t given it to us. So this afternoon, we will be filing a lawsuit, the secretary of State of Florida, against the Department of Homeland Security to give us that database. We want to have fair, honest elections in our state and we have been put in a position that we have to sue the federal government to get this information.” Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner produced the lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C. district court on Monday, shortly after, along with a statement. “For nearly a year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has failed to meet its legal obligation to provide us the information necessary to identify and remove ineligible voters from Florida’s voter rolls,” Detzner said. “We can’t let the federal government delay our efforts to uphold the integrity of Florida elections any longer. We’ve filed a lawsuit to ensure the law is carried out and we are able to meet our obligation to keep the voter rolls accurate and current.”

Florida: Voter Purge Adds to Debate Over Voting Rights Act | Article 3

In this firefight, the first shot was Governor Scott’s, the next belonged to the Department of Justice and the winner might just be the civil rights era Voting Rights Act up for Supreme Court review next term. What’s the story? Governor Scott’s chief election official announced Florida’s intention to sue the Department of Homeland Security for access to a federal database that would help state officials better identify and remove non-citizens currently on their voter rolls. Moments later the Justice Department counter-sued Florida for violation of federal laws. Why? Unlike other Southern States, from Alabama to Mississippi to Virginia, the state of Florida is not covered as a whole but it does have five jurisdictions subject to Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Passed in an effort to outlaw discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires covered jurisdictions to seek preclearance from federal judges, or the Department of Justice, before changes can be made “to any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting.” Florida’s unilateral action was in violation of this act.

Florida: Gov. Scott: DOJ ‘stonewalling’ attempt to protect voting rights | The Hill

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) called his determination to remove ineligible voters from Florida’s voting rolls “a no-brainer” on Tuesday, charging the administration with “stonewalling” the attempt. “We’re sitting here trying to watch how we spend our money, pay down our debt, do the right things for the citizens of our state, and the federal government tells us, ‘Oh, no, you can’t do the right thing for our citizens and we’re going to sue you,’ ” Scott said on Fox News. “It doesn’t make sense.” Scott announced on Monday that Florida is suing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in order to move forward, in response to the Department of Justice (DOJ) filing a suit against the state over actions taken for the purging attempt. “This is protecting the rights of U.S. citizens and not diluting their vote by non-U.S. citizens,” Scott said. “When non-U.S. citizens register and vote, it is illegal, it is a crime.” Florida began purging county voting rolls this year in order to eliminate ineligible voters ahead of what will likely be a hotly contested election, but stopped due to the administration’s protests.