Palast Announces Suit Against 26 Crosscheck States

[JonLP24]

In Testimony To National Commission For Voter Justice
JULY 25, 2018
By Nicole Powers

Award-winning investigative reporter Greg Palast was called to testify in front of the National Commission for Voter Justice (NCVJ) at their Southern California Regional Hearing. The non-partisan organization was set up in response to the now-defunct Trump/Kobach Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which used fraudulent claims of illegal double-voting as justification to cull millions of perfectly legal (mostly young and/or minority) voters from the rolls.

The NCVJ’s SoCal proceedings were held on Saturday, July 14 at the Los Angeles Trade-Technical College’s Aspen Hall in Downtown LA, and were part of the organization’s nationwide effort to “highlight, document, and address the scourge of voter suppression across the country.”

Among those present were NCVJ National Co-Chairs Barbara R. Arnwine and Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent Hughes, and Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., who serves as NCVJ’s Honorary Chair and who personally thanked Palast for his tireless efforts to expose Crosscheck — the GOP’s racially-biased weapon of mass vote destruction.

Below is a transcript of Palast’s NCVJ testimony:

We had 112 million Americans registered to vote in 2016 and it is now down to 110 million. Two million voters have vanished. What’s happened? The answer, from my investigations, is purge-by-postcard.We just had a decision by the court in Randolph Institute v. Husted… The state of Ohio had eliminated over half a million voters. It was misreported that these voters were eliminated because they failed to vote in a couple of elections. That was just a trigger. In fact the court allowed them to be removed because they received a postcard and didn’t return it. And they used that as evidence these voters had moved.

https://www.gregpalast.com/palast-testifies-in-front-of-national-commission-for-voter-justice/

[Farmer-Rick]

1. Ok, am I missing something?

I don't see, except for the headline, where it says a suit was filed.

[pazzyanne]

3. In the article with the link provided in the OP I found the following paragraph:

"We are seeing this mass purge of voters happening silently, so now we’ve filed in 26 states. And in Illinois the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. and I have sent a notice that we will be filing a federal lawsuit under the National Voter Registration Act because we have a right to find out the names of those voters removed and why they were removed."

[Farmer-Rick]

4. Thanks, I must have missed it.

[pazzyanne]

2. Talk about one stop voter suppression!

It is absolutely amazing that states thought that this was a good idea. Kudos to the state of Washington for recognizing Crosscheck for what it is: A tool to advance voter suppression.

[Sam McGee]

5. Not so fast

While I am a big fan of what Palast is doing, it's important to understand that he is mixing two activities: NCOA list maintenance, and, Crosscheck.

NCOA -- National Change of Address list maintenance.
Here's how is works in Virginia.

When people move, they complete a change of address form at their local post office giving old and new address -- that is, most of us do. Each year in July, the USPS sends this list to the states; each state receives a list of people in their state who have moved. The states get name, social security number, old and new addresses.

States then run that list against their voter registration rolls -- at least, in Virginia that's what we do. If a person's new address does not match the address on the voter rolls, that is accepted as evidence that the person moved and did not notify their local registrar to change their address.

A letter is sent to each person in this category. The letter goes by forwardable mail, in hopes the letter will catch up with them. Inside the letter is a card and a postage-paid envelope. The voter is to indicate their change of address on the card and return it to the state Department of Elections.

Anyone who does not return the card is designated an INACTIVE VOTER. If an inactive voter shows up at the polls to vote, they are asked to fill out a change of address form that updates their voter registration. They then cast a provisional ballot which, unless there is a disqualifying condition, is counted.

If an inactive voter does not vote in TWO CONSECUTIVE FEDERAL ELECTIONS -- four years -- that voter's name is removed from the voter registration rolls.

CROSSCHECK
Crosscheck is a voluntary system in which 26 (??? not certain of the number) states participate.

Annually participating states send to Crosscheck their voter registration database. Crosscheck converts these databases to a common format, then, Crosscheck compares the states to see if anyone is registered to vote in more than one state. If matches are found, Crosscheck sends to each state a list of voters in that state who appear to be registered in another state.

In my small Virginia county with 11,000 registered voters, we receive each year a list of 20 or so voters who are "registered to vote in two states." This has been going on for 8 years and we have yet to find someone who is double-registered. When we investigate, we find: (1) moved to another state, registered there, cancelled their VA registration, Crosscheck is wrong; (2) list is wrong -- same name, similar name; (3)unable to contact the voter in VA or any other state.

The problem is that Crosscheck uses names and birth date. The most common name in the US is Maria Garcia, or, Robert Smith -- depending on whom you ask.

If there are 23 people in a room, there's a 50/50 chance that two will have the same birthDAY. With 75 people, the odds go up to 99.9%. I don't have the stats on how many people you must have to have the same birthDAY and year, but, with tens of thousands of Maria Garcias, Robert Smiths, and other very common names, it's not unusual that people with the same name and birthdate show up in different states. Add to this Jr, Sr, different middle initials and the like, and the number of cross-state "matches" increases.

And -- Crosscheck is based in . . . . Kansas . . . the home state of . . . Chris Kolbach.

[secondwind]

7. People move. We just moved from FL to CA in April.

[UCmeNdc]

6. It seems the Democratic Party has no organized component within its organizational structure to

fight voter suppression efforts by the GOP.

This seems to be an ongoing problem within the Democratic party with no Democratic Party support for a push back against voter suppression efforts.

[Susan Calvin]

8. Yep.

And that's exactly where their votes are lost. It's nuts that this is not a prime focus.