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"Crosscheck" in the Crosshairs. Voting Rights Groups Challenge Electoral Purges
GREENSBORO, N.C. — As control of the U.S. Senate hangs in the balance, voting-rights activists are preparing for a fight over the removal of suspected fraudulent voters and nowhere more so than the Southern battleground states of Georgia and North Carolina. They are responding to a six-month investigation published last week by Al Jazeera America, which revealed that millions of voters are at risk of being removed from the rolls in 27 states participating in the Interstate Crosscheck program, a voter-fraud detection system.
Using open-records requests, Al Jazeera America obtained the previously confidential Crosscheck lists of 2.1 million voters potentially accused of casting ballots in two different states in the same election, a crime punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison. The lists reveal that the supposed double voters were matched simply on first and last name, and middle initials, suffixes and Social Security numbers were ignored. Due to its shoddy methodology, the list captured far more black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters than their white counterparts, in large part because of the commonality of minority surnames.
Helen Ho, executive director for the legal advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, says, the investigation was a “bombshell.” While Ho’s immediate concern is protecting her community’s voters in today’s tight Senate contest between Democrat Michelle Nunn and Republican David Perdue in Georgia, she is leading national groups to take action against the misuse of the Crosscheck lists. She worries that Asian-Americans, many of whom share just a few common surnames — such as Chung, Lee, Patel and Kim — are particularly vulnerable to Crosscheck’s system of using little more than first and last name to identify potential double voters. “No one knew what was going on,” says Ho of Georgia’s participation in Crosscheck.
. . .
Before mounting the stage, Barber spoke with Al Jazeera America about the Interstate Crosscheck revelations. “Their computer system has already been proven to have quite a few glitches… it’s so bad at this point of the elections to create that kind of hysteria,” he said. “The claim of fraud is fraudulent. What they’re afraid of is people voting one time, not people voting two times. And the more people vote one time, it means that not many people will be voting for them, for the extremists in our state.”
Using open-records requests, Al Jazeera America obtained the previously confidential Crosscheck lists of 2.1 million voters potentially accused of casting ballots in two different states in the same election, a crime punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison. The lists reveal that the supposed double voters were matched simply on first and last name, and middle initials, suffixes and Social Security numbers were ignored. Due to its shoddy methodology, the list captured far more black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters than their white counterparts, in large part because of the commonality of minority surnames.
Helen Ho, executive director for the legal advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, says, the investigation was a “bombshell.” While Ho’s immediate concern is protecting her community’s voters in today’s tight Senate contest between Democrat Michelle Nunn and Republican David Perdue in Georgia, she is leading national groups to take action against the misuse of the Crosscheck lists. She worries that Asian-Americans, many of whom share just a few common surnames — such as Chung, Lee, Patel and Kim — are particularly vulnerable to Crosscheck’s system of using little more than first and last name to identify potential double voters. “No one knew what was going on,” says Ho of Georgia’s participation in Crosscheck.
. . .
Before mounting the stage, Barber spoke with Al Jazeera America about the Interstate Crosscheck revelations. “Their computer system has already been proven to have quite a few glitches… it’s so bad at this point of the elections to create that kind of hysteria,” he said. “The claim of fraud is fraudulent. What they’re afraid of is people voting one time, not people voting two times. And the more people vote one time, it means that not many people will be voting for them, for the extremists in our state.”
http://projects.aljazeera.com/2014/double-voters/challenging-crosscheck.html
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tRump
Thank you, CousinIT, for posting this. 
And thank you AlJazeera for investigating and reporting!
