Obama DOJ Too Partisan. States MUST Ensure Integrity of our Elections

Part of the bipartisan Help America Vote Act was a provision for list maintenance.  List maintenance meant simply the removal of ineligible voters and duplicate names.  Democrats have fought this tooth and nail even calling it “purging” in an effort to cast a bad light on any effort to improve the integrity of our elections.  Democrats conviently forget that there are protections against a name being wrongly removed or purged from the roles through tools such as provisional ballots.  No voter will be disenfranchised through the performing of list maintenance but many voters will be disenfranchised by having their vote canceled out when an illegal “voter” votes. 

But the efforts of liberals and Democrats to prevent list maintenance goes further than negative public relations.  A high ranking Obama appointee, Julie Fernandes, in the Department of Justice refused to enforce list maintence (Section 8).  As detailed in the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) report:

Thirteen witnesses told the OIG that Fernandes stated that she “did not care about” or “was not interested” in pursuing Section 8 cases, or similar formulations. For instance, Chris Herren, who was later promoted by current Division leadership to Section Chief, told the OIG that Fernandes made a controversial and “very provocative” statement at this brown bag lunch. In particular, Herren stated that Fernandes stated something to the effect of “[Section 8] does nothing to help voters. We have no interest in that.”

Fernandes was really saying list maintenance does not help the Democratic party.  By refusing to perform list maintenance, she knew exactly what she was doing. 

And the scope of this problem cannot be under estimated.  Even the left leaning PEW Charitable Trusts concluded.

·         More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters.

·         Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state.

·         About 12 million records have incorrect addresses, meaning either the voters moved, or errors in the information make it unlikely any mailings can reach them.

It is for this reason that House Administration Committee Chairman Candice Miller purposed H.R. 2115, The Voter Registration Efficiency Act.  Miller said of the bill in a recent hearing:

Our bill gives states the ability to collect and share the information necessary to identify and prevent millions of duplicate voter registrations nationwide – an overdue update that will undoubtedly improve the integrity of our electoral process.

The bill is essential to ensure that states do what the Obama Justice Department won’t:  Ensure that our elections are open, fair and honest.