A reader just sent in this intriguing information: 1.4 million homeowners face foreclosure. Obviously, they and their families will change residences -- and this change may affect their eligibility to vote.
A decade ago, fewer problems would have arisen. Voters who had moved recently often would simply vote in their old districts. I've done this. But nowadays, we live in paranoid times, and Republicans are likely to challenge voters (although state law in Ohio now prevents such challenges at the polling stations.) This article in the Columbus Dispatch discusses the problem.
Adding to the potential trouble: Folks avoiding creditors tend to avoid leaving forwarding addresses. They often do not file change of address forms with the post office. And they may want to avoid filling out a registration form altogether, since registration information is public.
Of course, those without a new address will not be able to register at all. In ritzy Santa Barbara, a public parking lot has been transformed into a haven for families living in their vehicles.
3 comments:
for states with draconian voter photo ID laws, they have to present an ID with their current address, and many who have moved don't have time to hassle with getting their driver license and other forms of photo ID's updated.
MONDAY 7 JULY 2008
Associate Press
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/06/politics/main4235328.shtml
Will Foreclosures Affect Voting Rolls?
(AP) Election officials worry that the state's home foreclosure problem will pose a problem this November for voters still registered at their former address, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Voters in pivotal Ohio with outdated addresses face possible pre-election challenges and trips to multiple polling places. They also are more likely to cast provisional ballots that might not be counted.
"It's a real issue," said Daniel Tokaji, an Ohio State University law professor who specializes in elections. He wonders whether foreclosures might explain the increasing percentages of provisional votes cast between 2004 and Ohio's latest election, the presidential primary in March.
Ohio provided President Bush with an 118,000-vote victory in 2004, giving him the electoral votes he needed to win the election.
Nearly 3,700 people are registered to vote at Columbus addresses the city lists as vacant, according to records maintained by the city's code-enforcement office and the Franklin County Board of Elections, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
The number of voters on the move is higher than that. The Franklin County Board of Elections sent notices in January to about 27,000 residents who had filled out change-of-address forms but failed to update their voter registrations.
Only about 10,000 had responded through the end of May, but deputy elections director Matthew Damschroder said that partly accounted for a 25 percent increase in new registrations and address changes compared with 2004.
Voters - not the county - are responsible for keeping registrations current. Boards of health send regular updates so they can remove dead people from the rolls.
In Franklin County, people who are alive and registered but don't vote are removed after sitting out eight years of elections.
Ohio's requirement that voters show identification at the polls makes it more important that they keep their registration information current, said Jeff Ortega, a spokesman for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's elections chief.
In 2004, the Ohio Republican Party challenged more than 31,000 newly registered voters statewide after letters it mailed out came back as undeliverable. The challenges failed, but Brunner said a new state law requiring counties to mail their own notices to all registered voters could lead to another round of pre-election challenges.
Columbus ranked 32nd among U.S. cities in the number of foreclosure filings during the first quarter of 2008, according to RealtyTrac, a Web site that lists homes on the market in most cities. Cleveland, Dayton, Akron, Toledo and Cincinnati also were among the top 50, and Ohio was ninth among states during May, with one filing for every 410 homes.
Other battleground states rank high in foreclosure filings as well: Nevada led the nation in May with one filing for every 118 homes, while Florida was fourth, Michigan fifth, Georgia sixth, Colorado seventh and New Jersey 10th.
Franklin County GOP Chairman Doug Preisse didn't rule out challenges before Nov. 4. He said his party wants "clean, accurate voter lists."
As it did in 2004, the Ohio Democratic Party is putting together a "voter-protection" plan to fight eligibility challenges.
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Voters need to doublecheck the status of their voter registration--it isn't enough to "assume" filling out a change of address or new voter registration app is enough. Remember that several states threw out a million registered voters in states just before the primary like North Carolina and Iowa: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5959
Please forward to your club's voter reg volunteers.
From John Gideon:
Steve is exactly right. Everytime I go on the radio or speak to a
group I remind them that voter registration is one of the places
where voters will be disenfranchised. It is essential that every
voter checks now to ensure they are registered to vote and that their
information is up-to-date. They should then check again prior to the
close of registration in their state to allow them to re-register if
they have been removed from the rolls between now and then.
VotersUnite has provided the information on how to check your
registration for all 50 states here:
http://www.votersunite.org/info/RegInfo.asp
> From Steve Rosenfeld:
>
>Mark,
>What we can do to remedy this is remind people to check their
>registration information and make sure they are registered. Some
>states and counties will help you, meaning that if you move in the
>same election jurisdiction they will update your registration
>information. But many will not. Ohio is not exactly among the list
>of voter-friendly states.
>
>There doesn't need to be an alarmist tone over this. Millions of
>people move all the time. People just have to add revising their
>voter registration info as they would have to change any credit card
>mailing address, bank records, etc. There is still plenty of time
>for people to fix things and not lose their right to vote. You start
>by telling anyone to call their local election office to see how or
>if they are listed in the voter registration records. Then you ask
>how they want voters to update those records; ei, do they need to
>reregister, can they come in and fill out a change of address form,
>etc.
>
>Steve R
to refresh one's memory regarding the draconian supreme court approved photo ID law for Indiana, go here in which nuns were denied the right to vote along with many students: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5960
I wonder how all this is or will affect all of the pre-election polling results...
Miss P.
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