With the election right around the corner, one of the biggest areas of concern is maintaining voter rolls.
Republicans have been all over this for years, but now Biden's Department of Justice is quietly rolling out new guidelines, with some calling this an intimidation tactic.
Talking Points…
- Voter roll challenges
- DOJ new guidelines
- Analysis
If you do a quick search on voter rolls, you will see mostly liberal-leaning websites defending sloppy voter roll maintenance. Many of these outlets say this is a bogus attack by election deniers. Well, I am not an election denier, and I can tell you that nary a day passes when I don't see a report somewhere about election rolls getting tightened up, so this is clearly an issue.
Voter rolls should be audited every year, but some states barely touch them and allow names that should have been removed to remain on these voter rolls for years.
There are various reasons for voter roll purges, such as death, inactivity, felony conviction, and moving. For this reason, I have always advocated for a yearly audit of the voter rolls, preferably a few months before early voting starts, to ensure the voter rolls are as accurate as possible. Again, I believe it is rare for a federal election to be swung by voter roll inaccuracy, but local elections can easily be tainted if there are even small amounts of voter fraud.
Last week, Merrick Garland's Department of Justice very quietly rolled out new guidelines for when and how jurisdictions should be purging their voter rolls. The note went out on September 9 to "remind" jurisdictions that "voting rolls must be accomplished in compliance with federal law and in a nondiscriminatory manner." Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark stated:
"Ensuring that every eligible voter is able to [vote] and have that vote counted is a critical aspect of sustaining a robust democracy, and it is a top priority for the Justice Department.
"As we approach Election Day, it is important that states adhere to all aspects of federal law that safeguard the rights of eligible voters to remain on the active voter lists and to vote free from discrimination and intimidation."
Of course, red states are the most aggressive in terms of maintaining voter rolls, which explains why the DOJ is now getting involved. One expert, former DOJ attorney Gene Hamilton, stated:
"This is what I perceive as an attempt by the Department of Justice and Civil Rights Division to intimidate state and local jurisdictions and state and local election officials from doing their jobs."
Hamilton's watchdog group, America First Legal, spotted some rather large potential issues in the upcoming election. For instance, AFL has sued 15 counties in Arizona for not removing some 35,000 voters on its rolls who have not provided proof of citizenship. Then, on Tuesday, another report surfaced that there are citizenship questions for nearly 100,000 Arizona voters regarding citizenship status. Hamilton added:
"The problem is that this Department of Homeland Security, in particular, doesn't seem to care and doesn't seem to want to help people find ineligible voters on their voter rolls, and you have a lot of state officials across the country who don't seem to be willing to do their jobs."
It literally makes no sense at all why Democrats would not be on board with this other than creating chaos during an election. Why even give Republicans fodder to say the election is rigged unless that is what you want them to do? Talking about election fraud is the last thing most of us want to hear because we want to believe our country is holding free and fair elections, but we really need to start asking if that is the case. If AFL is correct, and these voter roll issues are accurate, we are well beyond the scope of only influencing a local election. Let me put it this way... Donald Trump lost Arizona about 10,500 votes in 2020. If that happens again with these voter roll issues, this election result will surely get dragged into the courts.
