TPM: Bush administration sued MO for not being sufficiently aggressive in purging voter rolls

[Pirate Smile]

April 14, 2007 -- 10:14 PM EST // link)

I'll wait to see more before judging just how this fits into the larger Bush administration voter suppression agenda. But let me take note of Friday's ruling in a case that pitted the Bush Justice Department against the State of Missouri, specifically, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan. There's a jurisdictional issue in the case: balancing the state's versus localities' responsibility for administering elections. But the heart of the case is that the Bush administration sued the state for not being sufficiently aggressive in purging voter rolls. (See the original DOJ complaint.)

This is a classic battleground in the voter suppression game. Voter roll purges strikes names of people who've died or moved. But they also knock off the lists of a lot of occasional voters. This is what the Bush administration calls voting right enforcement.

In addition to finding against the Bush administration on the jurisdictional issue and a number of factual points ...

Laughrey said it was difficult to gauge the scope of the problem "because the United States has not presented the actual voter registration lists and shown who should have been included or excluded and why."
"It is also telling that the United States has not shown that any Missouri resident was denied his or her right to vote as a result of deficiencies alleged by the United States," Laughrey wrote. "Nor has the United States shown that any voter fraud has occurred."

It's all part of the same story.

(ed.note: At TPM we're actively pursuing a Missouri angle to the US Attorney Purge story which again turns on administration 'voter fraud' claims.)

-- Josh Marshall

[marmar]

1. I hope this spreads like a wildfire....

so we can watch our own modern-day Watergate unfold in hearings.....
:popcorn: Butter in the middle and on top, a box of Sour Patch Kids and a large Mountain Dew for me, please.

[Gman]

2. We're starting to get a very good idea of what a "loyal bushie" USDA's

main job is. Sue Democrats frivolously and suppress the vote.

[Pirate Smile]

3. kick

[mod mom]

4. I wish Conyers would subpoena Blackwell, Bernadette Noe + Bill Bennett in OH

I think they would learn alot on how elections were stolen with pressure on these 3 individuals, imho. OH was purge central in '04, then came the suppression legislation HB 3 to seal the deal.

[Morgana LaFey]

5. Could you provide a link for this so I can share it with others? Thx.