A Petition to Release the Names of Voters on the "Interstate Crosscheck" Purge List

[think]

Last edited Mon Dec 12, 2016, 01:15 PM - Edit history (1)

Quick note: Releasing the names of of voters on the Interstate Cross Check list is the only way to find out if names purged by this data base were accurate and if Americans who had every right to vote were given a provisional ballot. These provisional ballots can then be tossed out for a number of reasons that doesn't apply to regular ballots. A voter using a provisional ballot has no idea if his or her provisional ballot was tossed out.

Many experts and state officials have complained about the accuracy of the Cross Check voter purge system and it is known that the software can be used incorrectly which would increase the potential for errors.

A PETITION TO RELEASE THE NAMES OF VOTERS ON THE “INTERSTATE CROSSCHECK” PURGE LIST

To: Office of the Attorney General, Loretta E. Lynch
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

In his new Rolling Stone investigation Greg Palast has revealed that a program to prevent alleged voter fraud, “Interstate Crosscheck,” has wrongly tagged voters listing them as registering in two states or voting in two states, a felony crime. The suspect list of potential criminals contains an astonishing SEVEN MILLION NAMES—naming ONE IN SEVEN voters of color in the Crosscheck states.

While partisan officials have kept the list confidential, Rolling Stone investigative reporter Greg Palast obtained over one million of the accused.

The ONLY evidence you have voted or registered in two states is that you share a first name and last name with another voter. A typical example: Maria ISABEL Hernandez of Virginia is supposedly the same voter as Maria CRISTINA Hernandez of Louisiana.
Tens of thousands of voters have already been purged in a single state. As many as one million may lose their right to vote by this November.

Experts have stated the Crosscheck system, directed for 30 states by the highly partisan Secretary of State of Kansas, is “dangerously biased against minorities.” As the great civil rights leader Rev. Joseph Lowery said of Crosscheck, “This is Jim Crow all over again.”

From:
We, the undersigned. The American public demand an investigation of Crosscheck’s racially-biased purge operation — and the release of the entire list of the seven million Americans suspected of voting or registering in two states..

Upon reaching 50,000 co-signers our team at the Palast Investigative Fund will hand deliver the names to your office – and demand that your Civil Rights division do a full investigation into the Interstate Crosscheck program.
Signed,

Congressman Alcee Hastings, Congressional Black Caucus

Hon. Keith Ellison, US Congressman

Martin Luther King III

Santiago Juarez, AMPARO Legal Services

Dr. Wilmer Leon, Sirius FM

Bill Gallegos, Climate Justice, Communities for a Better Environment

Taz Ahmed, 18 Million Rising

Mimi Kennedy, People Demanding Action

Medea Benjamin, Code Pink

To read more and/or sign the petition:

http://thebestdemocracymoneycanbuy.com/petition/

Some additional background:

The No-BS Inside Guide to the Presidential Vote Recount

Wednesday, 30 November 2016 00:00
By Greg Palast, Truthout | News Analysis

~snip~

Provisional or "Placebo" Ballots

According to the US Elections Assistance Commission (EAC), Americans cast 2.7 million provisional ballots in the last presidential election. About a million were simply discarded. What?!

Yes. Discarded, not counted. You show up at your normal polling station and they can't find your name, or they don't like your ID, or you're supposed to vote in another precinct. Instead of letting you vote on a regular ballot, you fill out a "provisional" ballot and place it in an envelope, sign your name, and under penalty of jail time for lying, affirm you're a properly registered voter.

~snip~

In Wisconsin, provisional ballots were handed to voters -- mostly, it appears, students -- who didn't have the form of ID required under new Wisconsin law. These ballots were disqualified despite zero evidence even one voter was an identity thief.


~Snip~

The problem for Fitrakis: While he eventually plans to file suit against Crosscheck purges, in the meantime, it's not clear he can challenge the denial of a vote based on a false accusation of double voting. And for those who found their names missing and didn't demand a provisional ballot, there's no hope at all of recovering their vote.

Read more:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38553-the-no-bs-inside-guide-to-the-presidential-vote-recount

Tompkins Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton calls for audit of 2016 election

NOVEMBER 29, 2016BY JOLENE ALMENDAREZ

~Snip~

Just a bit of background: When New York State, under then-Governor George Pataki, was implementing the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) from 2003-2008, I was on the Assembly Committee on Elections (and still am). When the new state election law was signed, I was appointed by the Assembly Speaker to represent him on the advisory committee to the State Board of Elections throughout the regulatory process, which included the critical issues of computer security, both technical and chain of custody, and the actual choosing of vendors who met our strong state standards.

In other words, I spent an enormous amount of time over five years studying this issue and monitoring New York’s progress.

~Snip~

I have grave concerns about Voter Crosscheck purging, because the New York State Board of Elections, I recently learned, was doing a trial-run of this national purging program, whereby 29 states send their entire state voter databases to Arkansas and then Kris Kobach in Kansas, where they are matched against each other, ostensibly to find people who might be registered to vote in more than one state. Then they would send that list of matches – and possible purges -- back to each state. Unfortunately, the Crosscheck Program only uses a couple of data points, first and last name and date of birth, to make the matches, so the lists being sent back to all those states, are faulty in the extreme.

For example, when New York State’s list that came back from Kansas, I recently learned, it had about 400,000 matched names that might then be eligible for purging, or about 3.3 % of our database, an astonishing number. After making inquiries, I am happy to say that New York State seems to be carefully abiding by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993, using the due diligence required before purging any voter.

Using many more data points, such as middle initial, date of voter registration, etc., the New York Board of Elections had pared their list to only 30,000 possible purges, an expected number for a state of about 20 million people and a state from which new entrants to the country move to other states with greater-than-normal frequency. This number is a far cry from the 400,000 sent back from Crosscheck....

Read more:
http://ithacavoice.com/2016/11/tompkins-assemblywoman-barbara-lifton-calls-audit-2016-election/

Right-Wing Media Figures Conflate “Voter Fraud” With Voter Registration Inaccuracies

~Snip~

Brennan Center For Justice: Voter Roll Purges Use Inaccurate Lists, And Lack Of Transparency “Leaves Voters Vulnerable To Manipulated Purges.” The Brennan Center for Justice published a “systematic examination of voter purging” in 12 states and found that the process is “shrouded in secrecy, prone to error, and vulnerable to manipulation.” The study found that “purges rely on error-ridden lists” and “voters who are eligible to vote are wrongly stricken from the rolls because of problems with underlying source lists.” The report criticized voter purge processes as secretive and noted that “it is rare for states to provide notice when a registrant is believed to be deceased.” Additionally, “bad ‘matching’ criteria” and “insufficient oversight” leave voters “vulnerable to manipulated purges.” From the September 2008 report:

Purges rely on error-ridden lists. States regularly attempt to purge voter lists of ineligible voters or duplicate registration records, but the lists that states use as the basis for purging are often riddled with errors. For example, some states purge their voter lists based on the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File, a database that even the Social Security Administration admits includes people who are still alive. Even though Hilde Stafford, a Wappingers Falls, NY resident, was still alive and voted, the master death index lists her date of death as June 15, 1997. As another example, when a member of a household files a change of address for herself in the United States Postal Service’s National Change of Address database, it sometimes has the effect of changing the addresses of all members of that household. Voters who are eligible to vote are wrongly stricken from the rolls because of problems with underlying source lists.

Voters are purged secretly and without notice. None of the states investigated in this report statutorily require election officials to provide advance public notice of a systematic purge. Additionally, with the exception of registrants believed to have changed addresses, many states do not notify individual voters before purging them. In large part, states that do provide individualized notice do not provide such notice for all classes of purge candidates. For example, our research revealed that it is rare for states to provide notice when a registrant is believed to be deceased. Without proper notice to affected individuals, an erroneously purged voter will likely not be able to correct the error before Election Day. Without public notice of an impending purge, the public will not be able to detect improper purges or to hold their election officials accountable for more accurate voter list maintenance.

Bad “matching” criteria leaves voters vulnerable to manipulated purges. Many voter purges are conducted with problematic techniques that leave ample room for abuse and manipulation. State statutes rely on the discretion of election officials to identify registrants for removal. Far too often, election officials believe they have “matched” two voters, when they are actually looking at the records of two distinct individuals with similar identifying information. These cases of mistaken identity cause eligible voters to be wrongly removed from the rolls. The infamous Florida purge of 2000—conservative estimates place the number of wrongfully purged voters close to 12,000—was generated in part by bad matching criteria. Florida registrants were purged from the rolls if 80 percent of the letters of their last names were the same as those of persons with criminal convictions. Those wrongly purged included Reverend Willie D. Whiting Jr., who, under the matching criteria, was considered the same person as Willie J. Whiting. Without specific guidelines for or limitations on the authority of election officials conducting purges, eligible voters are regularly made unnecessarily vulnerable.

...

read more:
http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/10/21/right-wing-media-figures-conflate-voter-fraud-voter-registration-inaccuracies/214037

Additional links to background information:

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/florida-quits-crosscheck

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-gops-stealth-war-against-voters-w435890

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a48232/kris-kobach-voter-suppression/

https://thevotingnews.com/tag/interstate-crosscheck/

[think]

1. Update: Greg Palast delivers the petition to the DOJ along with Rep. Alcee Hastings letter: