Arizona: Judge: Arizona must accpet federal voter registration forms | YumaSun

A federal judge has given state and county election officials until the end of the month to finally comply with a court order to make sure that alternate voter registration forms are readily available – forms that do not require proof of citizenship. Judge Roslyn Silver rejected claims by Attorney General Tom Horne that all election officials need to do to comply with her order is accept the federal voter registration form if someone actually finds one and fills one out. Horne said the state has no obligation to actually provide those federal forms. Instead, the judge said the state and counties “shall ensure widespread distribution of the federal form through all reasonable channels.” And she said that, by the end of the month, election officials must make that form available “where they make the state form available, including websites.”

Minnesota: Judge interrupts voter ID spin | StarTribune.com

For political spinmeisters, timing can be tricky. You never know when something like a federal judge’s ruling might disrupt your spin cycle. That apparently happened Friday to the folks at Protect My Vote, the group promoting the amendment that would allow only people bearing government-issued photo identification cards to vote. They issued an email at the crack of dawn to journalists upbraiding DFL Secretary of State Mark Ritchie for saying that if adopted, their amendment would impede Election Day voter registration for many Minnesotans. “No legislators have stated any intent to eliminate Election Day registration,” said Dan McGrath, Protect My Vote’s chair and the executive director of the conservative advocacy group Minnesota Majority.

National: Technology could supplant voter IDs at polls, but registration problems remain | MinnPost

New technology can make voting a very efficient matter, making it possible to verify a voter’s identity at the poll even without a photo ID.  But the new electronic wizardry does little to eliminate problems some voters face in registering to vote in the first place. Electronic poll books, which contain computer software that loads digital registration records, are used in at least 27 states and the District of Columbia. Poll books are emerging as an alternative to photo ID requirements to authenticate voters’ identity, address and registration status, when they show up at polling places to vote. Voting is the same, but signing in with electronic poll books is different. Poll workers check in voters using a faster, computerized version of paper voter rolls. Upon arrival, voters give their names and addresses, or in some states, such as Iowa, they can choose to scan their photo IDs.

National: You Can Now Register to Vote at 35,000 Feet | US News and World Report

If on-demand movies, a 4,000 song playlist and onboard video games aren’t enough to keep guests entertained on a Virgin America flight, the airline is now offering a complimentary new service to get passengers engaged before the November election — voter registration at 35,000 feet. Starting Tuesday, guests can register to vote on all of Virgin America’s flights, about 1,000 flights a day. The voter registration drive is in cooperation with “Rock the Vote,” a non-partisan voter registration organization targeted at young voters, that hopes to get 1.5 million new voters engaged in time for the 2012 election.

Arizona: DoJ and Arizona clash – again – this time over voter registration | East Valley Tribune

Arizona, already at odds with the federal government and civil-rights groups over immigration, is adding voter ID and the Voting Rights Act to the disputes. Arizona’s voter ID law, a portion of Proposition 200, was partially struck down in April by a federal appeals court that said the state can’t require proof of citizenship for people who use a federal form to register to vote. But the court said Arizona can continue to require proof of citizenship for those who register using a state form and the state can still require voters to show ID at the polls. Federal voter registration forms, which must be accepted in all 50 states, were created as part of a 1993 federal law meant to make voter registration easier. The federal motor voter law – so named because it allows registration upon renewing or applying for a driver’s license – does not require applicants to prove citizenship. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that states can require proof of citizenship for their own registration forms, but not for federal forms. Arizona is appealing the court ruling against its restrictive voter ID law, and the state plans to sue over the section of the Voting Rights Act that requires federal permission for any changes to state and local elections. Arizona has asked the Supreme Court to allow the state to require citizenship proof on federal registration forms.

Florida: Once Again Florida at Center of Debate Over Voting Rules | News21

Florida’s hanging chads and butterfly ballots in 2000 ignited the divisive battle that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court denying an election recount, effectively declaring that George W. Bush won the presidential election by 537 votes. Another potentially close election is ahead, and the nation’s largest swing state is again at the center of a partisan debate over voting rules — this time, a fight about the removal of non-citizens from Florida’s voter roll and how the state oversees groups who register voters. It is set against a national backdrop of a bitter fight between Democrats who say voting rights of students and minorities are endangered and Republicans who say that voter fraud is widespread enough to sway an election. While many other states have considered laws that would require that people show a photo ID before they can vote, Florida has taken a different tack. Republicans there wrote a law in 2011 that they said would eliminate voter registration fraud by more closely controlling third-party registration, early voting hours and voter address updates. “With the old law, some things weren’t illegal or designated as fraud,” said Rep. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican and funeral home owner who sponsored the bill.

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.

Massachusetts: ‘Welfare-voter’ spat part of larger political duel | CSMonitor.com

A controversy over voter registration in Massachusetts is serving up a reminder: Election 2012 revolves not just around a messaging war but also around efforts by both parties to affect voter turnout. Republican Sen. Scott Brown has complained that, in an unusual move, state officials have used taxpayer money to mail voter-registration forms to welfare recipients. The move is such a blatant effort to boost Democratic support, he argues, that his Senate-race opponent should pick up the mass-mailing tab. Officials for the state, politically dominated by Democrats, say the mailing to welfare recipients was a logical response to legal pressure. The move is part of an interim settlement with plaintiffs who argue that the state has failed to comply with a 1993 federal law designed to ensure better voting access for Americans – including the opportunity to register while renewing a driver’s license or signing up for welfare. The mailing went out to nearly half a million Massachusetts residents, which the Brown campaign characterizes as about one-third the number of votes that will end up winning the Senate race between Senator Brown and his rival, Elizabeth Warren.

Texas: Judge denies state’s stay in voter registration case | The Statesman

A federal judge in Galveston today denied the state’s request for a stay that would have allowed Texas to enforce several of its voter registration laws. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office asked for the stay on Aug. 4 — the same day it appealed an order by U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa that granted a temporary injunction sought by two Galveston residents and two national, nonpartisan groups that organize efforts to register people in areas with low registration levels. The provisions at issue include those that prohibit completed voter applications from being mailed to county offices; prohibit deputy voter registrars from registering voters in counties where they don’t live; prohibit the photocopying of voter registration cards; require voter registrars to be Texas residents; and prohibit registration drives from firing deputy registrars based on their performance. Some of the blocked provisions specifically address “volunteer deputy registrars,” the canvassers who, by law, must be appointed to take applications from prospective voters.

National: Election Day impersonation, an impetus for voter ID laws, a rarity, data show | The Washington Post

A new nationwide analysis of more than 2,000 cases of alleged election fraud over the past dozen years shows that in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which has prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tougher voter ID laws, was virtually nonexistent. The analysis of 2,068 reported fraud cases by News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative reporting project, found 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000. With 146 million registered voters in the United States, those represent about one for every 15 million prospective voters. The News21 report is based on a national public-records search in which reporters sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of alleged fraudulent activity — including registration fraud; absentee-ballot fraud; vote buying; false election counts; campaign fraud; the casting of ballots by ineligible voters, such as felons and non-citizens; double voting; and voter impersonation.

National: Civil Rights Groups Release New Voter Protection App | Huffington Post

Defenders of the right to vote have a new high-tech weapon in their arsenal. A consortium of civil rights groups unveiled a smartphone application Thursday as part of a comprehensive strategy to combat what it called a nationwide effort to disenfranchise minority and youth voters. “The Election Protection smartphone app is a dynamic tool that will educate voters on their rights and empower them to take action so they can vote,” said Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, on a Thursday conference call with other organizations that developed the app. The free app is a “critical tool in our fight against voter suppression,” Arwine said, referring to recent state voter identification laws that aroused concerns among civil rights advocates. The tool gives voters the ability to digitally verify their registration status, find their polling place, encourage their friends and family to vote, fill out voter registration forms, and contact election protection officials, amongst other means to encourage voting.

Florida: State releases obsolete list of possible noncitizen voters | Miami Herald

It took weeks and weeks, but the state of Florida on Thursday finally released a list of 180,506 voters whose citizenship is in question, based on a cross-check of a database of Florida drivers. But state officials called the list “obsolete” and said they would not use it to “purge” anyone from the right to vote this fall — leaving open the possibility that some noncitizens could cast ballots. The list includes voters’ names, dates of birth, and their nine-digit voter ID numbers. Information on voters’ race, party affiliation home address was not included, and the state said that data was not part of the information the state used to create the list. An initial review by the Times/Herald showed that people with Hispanic surnames have a strong presence on the list, including 4,969 people with the first name of Jose; 2,832 named Rodriguez; 1,958 named Perez and 1,915 named Hernandez.

Florida: Election law challenge gets hearing | Miami Herald

A lawyer for Gov. Rick Scott’s administration on Friday said Florida won’t stop using two conflicting election laws, depending on the county, even if opponents of the dual system win an administrative law challenge. Two nonpartisan groups and a Democratic state senator contend the state violated rule-making requirements by directing local election officials in 62 counties to follow a new law even though the other five, all covered by the federal Voting Rights Act, have to adhere to an old one. They also argue the dual system violates another state law requiring a uniform election system but acknowledged it’ll probably take further litigation to require that all 67 counties stick with the old law until a federal court in Washington, D.C., decides if the new statute complies with the Voting Rights Act. “This would be the first step,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, after an administrative law hearing. “If we win here, in order to secure uniform elections in Florida we might have to go to another court.”

Pennsylvania: Larry Maggi, Pennsylvania Congressional Candidate, Could Lose Vote Under Voter ID Law | Huffington Post

A congressional candidate in Pennsylvania may not be able to vote for himself in the November elections, thanks to one of the country’s most stringent voter ID laws. Washington County Commission Chairman Larry Maggi’s driver’s license lists his full name as “Lawrence Owen Maggi,” but his voter registration reads “Larry Maggi” — a small but significant discrepancy under Pennsylvania’s new voter ID regulations. They require the name on the voter registration to “substantially conform” to the name on the driver’s license. The disparity in Maggi’s names caught the attention of Pennsylvania’s Department of State, which notified Maggi in an advisory letter, according to the Observer-Reporter. Maggi, a Democrat running for Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, is now pushing back with a new website called “Let Larry Vote” that highlights his potential problem at the polls given the voter ID crackdown.

Iowa: Groups sue to block Iowa voter purge, fraud rules | Quad City Times

Civil rights activists filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to block Iowa’s Republican secretary of state from enacting rules to purge foreign nationals from Iowa’s voter registration list and make it easier to file allegations of voter fraud. The American Civil Liberties Union and the League of United Latin American Citizens accused Secretary of State Matt Schultz of abusing his power in a plot to disenfranchise Latinos and other voters ahead of the presidential election in Iowa, a key battleground state. “To begin a purge of registered voters so close to the fall elections is unconscionable,” said Joseph Enriquez Henry, state director of LULAC, a Latino and Hispanic civil rights and advocacy group. “We urge Mr. Schultz to cease his political activity and to keep politics out of the elected office that he holds.”

Massachusetts: State mails welfare recipients voter registration form, sparking political row | The Boston Globe

Senator Scott Brown criticized the state’s welfare department Wednesday for sending voter registration forms to 478,000 people on public assistance, contending that the mass mailing was a ploy to boost the ranks of Democratic voters and help rival Elizabeth Warren’s election bid. The Democrat’s campaign denounced the Republican senator’s criticism as “bizarre,’’ pointing out that the legal challenge that triggered the mailing is part of an ongoing national effort that began years ago and that the law that is being enforced has long ­received bipartisan support. The state’s Department of Transitional Assistance sent registration forms last month, along with prepaid return ­envelopes, as part of an interim settlement over a lawsuit alleg­ing that the department has consistently failed to comply with federal voter registration law. The suit was filed in May by a pair of voting rights groups that were represented by ­Demos, an advocacy and public policy organization from New York that has brought similar actions in more than a half-dozen states.

New Mexico: Secretary of State Set to Terminate Right to Vote For New Mexico’s Leading Voting Rights Activist After 40 Years of Active Voting | ProgressNow

Diane Wood has voted in every New Mexico election since 1971, but this week New Mexico Secretary of State Diana Duran began the process to terminate her right to vote. Just 9 days ago, Duran announced that an analysis by her office had identified 177,768 “non-residents and non-voters”  (a full 15% of the state’s registered voters) whose voting rights would be terminated after a mailing to those legally registered voters was completed. Among the first to receive a mailer was none other than Santa Fe resident Diane Wood, the Voting Rights Director for Common Cause New Mexico, a non-profit organization working to ensure fair and accurate elections in the state. Wood received a notice in the mail at her Santa Fe home on Tuesday.  The notice directs Wood to verify her voting status with the Secretary of State’s own database, “Voter View” . However, when Wood checked her voting status there, she found that her status had been changed to “INACTIVE” in this mail purge alongside a list all of the elections she has voted in since 1992, a total of 44.  Wood’s most recent vote was just 88 days before she received the notice sent to alleged non-voters.

Maryland: State rolls out online voter registration | Washington Times

Maryland residents can now register online to vote using a new Web-based system. The Maryland State Board of Elections began promoting its new online-registration system with tweets from Gov. Martin O’Malley on Tuesday. The system has been available since July 9 and had been in the works for longer than a year. “It’s been on our radar screen for a while,” said Mary Cramer Wagner, director of voter registration for the state board. “You always want the next best thing.” People wanting to vote enter their personal information and driver’s license or state-issued ID numbers on a website. The license and ID numbers are cross-referenced with the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) to ensure validity. Military members stationed overseas can register online to vote using the last four digits of their Social Security number instead. If a resident doesn’t have a driver’s license or state-issued ID and is not actively serving overseas, he or she still needs to sign and send in a voter-registration application. Residents required to mail applications can use the new website to fill them out before printing them.

Editorials: Voting Rights Act anniversary celebrated, yet threats rising | Chicago Sun-Times

When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on Aug. 6, 1965, and when President George W. Bush renewed it in 2006, they were trying to prevent barriers to voting. It is tragic that efforts to bar millions of Americans from casting ballots have instead accelerated in recent years. Observers should not underestimate this threat — the very future of our democracy is at stake. Voter suppression efforts have only grown since 2000, when our worries were about the accuracy of voting equipment and Supreme Court bias. Even if the outcome was uncertain, however, most voters were rarely barred from participating in elections. Since then, broad swaths of our population have been targeted for attack. A national legislative campaign coordinated by the American Legislative Exchange Council has passed laws that could inordinately lock students, senior citizens, African-Americans and Hispanics out of their polling places. ALEC’s list of backers reads like a corporate Who’s Who: Koch Enterprises, Peabody Energy, UPS and Exxon Mobil, to name a few. These companies have millions to gain from legislatures favoring wealthy over low-income Americans.

Editorials: Voting ‘reform’ across the ages | Philadelphia Inquirer

Once upon a time, American elections were rife with corruption. Party bosses bought votes with strong drink and cold cash, or stuffed ballot boxes with bogus names. Then along came the good-government reformers who cleaned up our democracy with new election laws and regulations. That’s the story we all learned in high school. And it’s true, up to a point. But it leaves out a crucial fact: Those measures also sought to bar certain people from the polls. The goal of election reform wasn’t simply a clean vote; it was also to keep out the “wrong” kind of voter. Pennsylvania’s voter-ID law, which is being challenged in state court, follows this pattern. On its face, it seems neutral and unimpeachable: Who could object to safeguards against fraud? But in practice, as opponents told the court last week, it would make it harder for poor people and minorities to vote.

Texas: Voter registration the target of latest round of voting related litigation | kvue.com

From redistricting to voter ID, the Texas government and the federal government haven’t exactly seen eye-to-eye lately. There are more than 13 million registered voters in Texas, roughly 71 percent of the voting age population, however, there’s a fight brewing over exactly who can register the rest. At issue are a handful of components of current Texas law, from a pair of items passed during the last session to legislation dating to the mid-1980s. One element keeps third-party voter registration groups from working in more than one county. Another specifies only Texas residents can register voters. Other elements include legislation to keep registrars from being paid in relation to the number they sign up, from photocopying registration certificates and from mailing completed forms. Last week, a federal judge put those laws on hold with an injunction against the State of Texas. In his 94-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa of Galveston called the rules “more burdensome… than the vast majority, if not all, other states.”

Pennsylvania: Size of voter ID budget debated | The Times-Tribune

Conflicting estimates of how many Pennsylvania voters lack the required voter photo identification under a new state law are spurring debate about whether enough money is budgeted to implement it. The law requires voters to provide one of a half-dozen legally specified forms of photo ID when they go to the polls Nov. 6. The state budget for fiscal 2012-13 enacted June 30 provides $1 million to help the state Department of Transportation provide free nondriver photo ID cards to those requesting them. The Department of State has $5 million in federal funds through the Help America Vote Act for media advertising, mailings and phone calls for voter education and outreach, said agency spokesman Ron Ruman. State officials don’t see a need for budgeting more money at this stage while the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and Democratic lawmakers who uniformly voted against the law think the amounts are inadequate. The $1 million sum reflects analyses of the law’s fiscal impact by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees when it was enacted in March. The analyses cite assumptions that fewer than 1 percent of registered voters didn’t have a PennDOT ID card. The cost of producing a card is estimated at $13.50. “We pretty well knew from the beginning that the fiscal note lowballed what it was going to cost to provide free ID to people,” said Bonita Hoke, League executive director. “There is just not enough funding allocated for this.”

Virginia: Board takes no action on errant voter registration mailings | WSLS 10

After a two hour meeting, the State Board of Elections opted today not to take any action related to a group’s voter registration mailings that have led to several hundred complaints. The board met this morning to discuss mailings from the Washington-based Voter Participation Center, many of which have been sent to already-registered voters and some ineligible to vote, including the deceased, children, non-U.S. citizens and even family pets.

National: Voter ID Laws May Affect Young Voters | Fox News

The same state voter ID laws that have drawn criticisms from Latino groups and immigrants are now taking heat from young voters. Gone are the days when young voters weren’t taken seriously. In 2008, they helped propel Barack Obama into the Oval Office, supporting him by a 2-1 margin. But that higher profile also has landed them in the middle of the debate over some state laws that regulate voter registration and how people identify themselves at the polls. Since the last election, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Wisconsin and Texas and other states have tried to limit or ban the use of student IDs as voter identification. In Florida, lawmakers tried to limit “third party” organizations, including student groups, from registering new voters.

Washington: Yakima woman mystified to find herself as a candidate on ballot | Yakima Herald-Republic

Sarah Glasscock of Yakima opened her primary ballot envelope Sunday intending to familiarize herself with the candidates and the issues. One named leaped off the page: Her own. Glasscock saw her name on the ballot as a candidate for a Republican precinct committee post in Precinct 110, an area along West Yakima Avenue. Problem is, Glasscock didn’t file a candidacy declaration and she’s not a Republican. Should she gain the most votes among the three candidates, she could resign. That’s not the problem. The problem is how her name appeared in the first place.  The intrigue includes her declaration arriving as a fax from a New Jersey phone number that belongs to a marketing office for the Japanese manufacturing firm Miki Sangyo. According to its website, the diversified firm has interests in specialty chemicals, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, specialty paper and opticals.

Editorials: Dismantling The GOP’s Odious Philosophy Of Voter Suppression | William Galston/The New Republic

Republicans should not be surprised if voter laws becomes a major topic of debate this election season—they will be the ones responsible for making it so. Over the past two years, the GOP has made a concerted attempt in a number of states to tighten voter registration procedures, cut back on alternatives such as early voting, and—most controversially—require would-be voters to show state-issued photo IDs as proof of identity. Because there’s such little evidence that these changes are needed to eliminate widespread voter fraud, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that many Republican legislators want to discourage voting among groups—especially minorities and the poor—that cast their ballots mainly for Democrats.  But it’s worth remarking that beneath these crass political motives are some deeper moral issues. Proponents and opponents of these changes agree on one thing: Voting will be harder, and turnout will be lower. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Proponents think not. Speaking for many others, Florida State Senator Mike Bennett said, “I don’t have a problem making [voting] harder. I want people in Florida to want to vote as bad as that person in Africa who walks 200 miles across the desert. This should be something you do with a passion.”

Texas: Court enjoins enforcement of new Texas voter registration laws | Texas Redistricting

This afternoon, U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa enjoined enforcement of Texas laws passed in the 2011 legislative session which require that deputy voter registrars be Texas residents and prohibited performance-based compensation for voter registration staff. The restrictions had been challenged by the non-profit group Voting for America and various other plaintiffs in a suit filed early this year in federal district court in Galveston. The court rejected claims of Texas that the new restrictions were required to prevent fraud, holding that “[i]f these practices did contribute to fraud, concrete examples of such fraud would likely exist from decades of experience … But no such evidence was introduced for the Court to weigh against the harm to Plaintiffs.”

Hawaii: Hawaii County election troubles appear to be over reaction | Hawaii News Now

After a week of not responding to reporters’ inquiries as well as calls from state elections and political campaign officials, Hawaii County Clerk Jamae Kawauchi told reporters at the State Capitol Tuesday why she closed her office in Hilo for a day last week and went to the state Attorney General’s office. She said her office discovered several dozen Hawaii Island voters with duplicate voter registrations and found about four people who voted twice in the same elections in 2010.  Sources told Hawaii News Now this is a case of a rookie county clerk who’s never overseen an election over reacting to some routine voter problems that should have been discovered months or weeks ago, not less than three weeks before the primary election. After meeting with state’s chief election officer and the county clerks of the other three counties in Honolulu, Kawauchi spoke to reporters in the State Senate chambers, where elections officials are preparing to count votes in the Aug. 11 primary.  She said she closed her office July 23 to conduct an audit of Hawaii County voter rolls and found 50 to 60 Big Island voters were registered to vote twice.

Minnesota: State Supreme Court hears ballot naming debate | The Minnesota Daily

On Tuesday, the Minnesota Supreme Court heard two cases on the same issue: Who has the final authority to write the titles of amendment ballot questions? Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a Democrat, changed the ballot titles of both the proposed voter ID and marriage amendments from what the Republican-controlled Legislature had originally written. Solicitor General Alan Gilbert argued that based on a 1919 Minnesota statute, the role of titling lies with the secretary of state and attorney general.

National: Partisan Rifts Hinder Efforts to Improve U.S. Voting System | NYTimes.com

Twelve years after a too-close-to-call presidential contest imploded in a hail of Florida punch card ballots and a bitter 5-to-4 Supreme Court ruling for George W. Bush, the country’s voting systems remain as deeply flawed as ever with any prospect of fixing them mired in increasing levels of partisanship. The most recent high-profile fights have been about voter identification requirements and whether they are aimed at stopping fraud or keeping minority group members and the poor from voting. But there are worse problems with voter registration, ballot design, absentee voting and electoral administration. In Ohio, the recommendations of a bipartisan commission on ways to reduce the large number of provisional ballots and long lines at polling stations in 2008 have come to naught after a Republican takeover of both houses of the legislature in 2010. In New York, a redesign of ballots that had been widely considered hard to read and understand was passed by the State Assembly this year. But a partisan dispute in the Senate on other related steps led to paralysis. And states have consistently failed to fix a wide range of electoral flaws identified by a bipartisan commission led by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III in 2005. In Florida, for example, the commission found 140,000 voters who had also registered in four other states — some 46,000 of them in New York City alone. When 1,700 of them registered for absentee ballots in the other state, no one investigated. Some 60,000 voters were also simultaneously registered in North and South Carolina.