Voter Registration Cleanup
Be sure to check your mail for a voter registration card! From the Indianapolis Star:
It seems this is popular in Republican states to "clean out" voter registries, but there always seems to be problems down the road of people being off the lists when they try to vote. Just look at Florida 2000 or Ohio 2004. Not to mention that we now need ID's when we do go to the polls. Riddle me this though, they haven't addressed any abuses of the absentee voters... I know of one guy who was proud that in the last election he voted absentee for Bush in Florida while he was voting here ALSO for Bush. Two votes! Not to mention the use of voting machines with no paper trail... and what is up with that anyway? Why no backups?
Sometime we will have to really address voting problems... hopefully sooner rather than later.
Every Indiana voter soon will get greetings in the mail from the state.
Secretary of State Todd Rokita, the state's chief elections officer, said his office soon will be sending out 4.3 million postcards -- the first step toward purging inaccuracies from Indiana's voter registration lists. He was not more specific on the timing.
Rokita said the cleanup will cost nearly $2 million, but he expects that as many as 1 million names will be removed from the voter lists as people who have moved or died are identified.
Republicans and Democrats have bickered over how to clean the voter lists. An agreement reached late Thursday with the U.S. Department of Justice cleared the way for the mailing.
People do not need to respond to the cards, Rokita said.
If the card is returned to the state as undeliverable, a second notice -- along with a postage-paid response card -- will be sent; unlike the first card, it can be forwarded to a new address.
After that mailing, anyone who doesn't respond will be placed on an "inactive" voter list. Voters casting a ballot during the next two years will remain a registered voter. If they don't vote, they'll be purged from the lists and have to register again to vote.
It seems this is popular in Republican states to "clean out" voter registries, but there always seems to be problems down the road of people being off the lists when they try to vote. Just look at Florida 2000 or Ohio 2004. Not to mention that we now need ID's when we do go to the polls. Riddle me this though, they haven't addressed any abuses of the absentee voters... I know of one guy who was proud that in the last election he voted absentee for Bush in Florida while he was voting here ALSO for Bush. Two votes! Not to mention the use of voting machines with no paper trail... and what is up with that anyway? Why no backups?
Sometime we will have to really address voting problems... hopefully sooner rather than later.
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