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Feds Allow Florida To Use Citizen Database For Voter Purge
July 15, 2012
Secretary of State Ken Detzner said Saturday that the state has received access to a federal database that could allow it to move forward with a voter purge aimed at removing suspected non-citizens from the rolls.
The announcement is likely to reignite a battle over the initiative, which the state says will sweep ineligible voters off the rolls but critics charge could inadvertently cost some citizens their right to vote.
“I am very pleased that the federal government has committed to giving us the access necessary to identify noncitizens on the voter rolls and make sure these ineligible voters cannot cast a ballot,” Detzner said in a statement released Saturday. “Florida voters are counting on their state and federal governments to cooperate in a way that ensures elections are fair, beginning with ensuring the voter rolls are current and accurate.”
Detzner almost immediately sent a letter to elections supervisors, many of whom have so far resisted the purge, suggesting that access to the federal database would allow the program to resume. The state had stopped sending names beyond a random sample to the supervisors after many complained it was riddled with inaccuracies.
In the letter, Detzner says the state and the federal government plan to sign an agreement allowing the state use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, database “very soon.”
“The first set of names we intend to review using the SAVE database will be the names provided to supervisors this past April,” Detzner wrote. “The results will be provided to you for additional actions in accordance with applicable laws.”
Detzner also reiterated the state’s argument that the initial sample turned up examples of noncitizens who were registered to vote, some of whom had cast ballots.
“These ineligible voters must be removed to ensure the integrity of our elections,” Detzner said.
A federal court in June rejected a request by the U.S. Department of Justice to bar the state from taking any more steps toward carrying out its purge program, saying that concerns that eligible voters could be removed from the list were significant.
“But having an ineligible voter on the list is not a solution,” U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle said.
At the same time, Hinkle said the ruling was driven in part by assurances from the state that it would not forward any more names to county elections supervisors based on a list of potentially ineligible voters that even the state concedes is inaccurate. That list is drawn from driver’s license and voter-registration records.
Detzner said in his letter that the state-generated list “should be considered obsolete.”
Overall, Hinkle’s ruling that the state could pursue the removal of non-citizens within 90 days of a federal election seemed to pave the way for some version of the scrubbing to continue, especially if the state gained access to SAVE and could prove the effort isn’t discriminatory.
The state and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have battled over the SAVE database for months, with the state saying it has the right to access the list and DHS saying Florida hasn’t provided all the necessary information to use it. The state eventually sued the department for access to SAVE.
Florida officials said in recent weeks it now has sent the information the federal agency was looking for, apparently clearing the way for Saturday’s announcement.
By The News Service of Florida
Comments
7 Responses to “Feds Allow Florida To Use Citizen Database For Voter Purge”
“This is crazy republican politics trying to scare people out of voting because they vote democrat.” Must be awful to see crazy behind every tree. As for “scaring” people out of voting, is that like the Philadelphia guys standing outside predominantly Obama backing neighborhood polling places in the 2008 election, brandishing billy clubs, dressed in paramilitary uniforms, and overtly intimidating voters who appeared different or who were the same but suspected of not backing Obama?
David’s explanation is perfect except for the side receiving advantages from illegal voters (I do recognize his humor in the hypothetical!) Democrats historically benefit from voter fraud, as Kathy readily admitted to in her statement. I don’t recall the Republican party being exposed for having large numbers of dead people, illegal aliens, ineligible felons, or imaginary people on its rolls. I do recall seeing a young inner city fellow interviewed who openly admitted to having voted democratic 16 times, I think it was. Recruited by ACORN and paid per vote cast. Said he thought he was just helping out Daffy Duck, Joe DiMaggio and others under whose names he voted when they couldn’t get to the polls that day. There’s nothing crazy about wanting legal citizens/eligible voters of this country to vote ONCE per election in order to legitimately have a stake in what happens to our country so the rest of us have a stake in it, too. Anyone who feels illegal voter turnout numbers won’t matter all that much in the election outcome should please stay home on 6 November – cause that would mean their lil ole vote won’t matter!
REGARDING:
“Aliens voting doesn’t diminish any ones vote. ”
Surely ye jest.
Let’s take an imaginary case in which 16 million Florida voters split exactly half way, 8 million for President Obama, 8 Million for Mitt Romney.
Now add a hundred legitimate voters for Obama and a thousand illegitimate alien voters voting for Romney. (If you don’t think those evil Republicans would do such thing, please explain why you don’t. We will bring it up at the next Hootnany, meeting of Democrats.)
The extra thousand illegal votes would overwhelm the hundred legal votes and throw the election toward Romney even though 8,000,100 legal voters voted for Obama and a mere 8,000,000 legal voters voted for Romney.
If the electoral votes from the rest of the country were solely from legitimate voters and were split dead even, those one thousand illegal Republican votes would throw the election away from the votes of say a hundred million legitimate voters.
This would be bad, right?
David for accepting truth
Seems to me when you show up at the poll to vote and you show your voter id and drivers license you have proven you have the right to vote. Aliens voting doesn’t diminish any ones vote. This is crazy republican politics trying to scare people out of voting because they vote democrat.
Let the purge begin.Time to clean them up, we sure do not wish to have another ACORN fraud scam on our hands.
CONCERNING FROM ABOVE:
“A federal court in June rejected a request by the U.S. Department of Justice to bar the state from taking any more steps toward carrying out its purge program, saying that concerns that eligible voters could be removed from the list were significant.
” “But having an ineligible voter on the list is not a solution,” U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle said.”
There are two simple ways of taking away your vote.
First, don’t allow you to vote when you are otherwise qualified to do so.
Second, having someone who is not qualified to cast a ballot vote against the way you vote, cancelling you out.
Both are dangers.
Democrats are afraid of the first and not the second.
Republicans seem to only worry about the second.
David for legitimate government
and good judges such as Hinkle
In order to provide fair and honest elections the state needs to verify that the people voting are citizens and are who they say they are.
You got to love it, a data base totally useless to the Fl. idiots. The data base has millions of names with an lien id number, if the alien isn’t even aware of the number there is no way to prove he/she is that person. They won a battle and got nothing they can use. Wasting tax dollars for nothing.