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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Voter Purge: Check Your Registration

Voter Purge: Check Your Registration

by TaMara|  March 10, 202012:47 pm| 29 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Voter Suppression

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I made a video this morning about the importance of voting and then got turned away because I wasn’t in the system even though I’ve voted there for 11 years, including for myself four times! Go figure, but that’s okay. We’ll be back later today! #Vote #KCMO pic.twitter.com/3mYNrO6jmC

— Mayor Q (@QuintonLucasKC) March 10, 2020

Hmmm…I wonder why he was purged. Can’t quite put my finger on it.

This is a crisis in this country and we all need to work to solve it. Until legislation is passed to address this form of voter suppression, check your registration and help your family and neighbors check theirs.

Here is a one of the best resources I’ve found:

Love the personalized election guide from @vote411 and @lwv! #lwv #VOTE #2020election #ThursdayThoughts https://t.co/7j1sIJnnCE

— Holly Bodner (@bodner_h) February 13, 2020

Also, if you want to actively affect change All On The Line is the grassroots advocacy campaign supported by the National Redistricting Action Fund. More information here. 

One person.
One vote.

Whether you care about providing access to affordable health care, reducing the gun violence that plagues our schools and communities, protecting voting rights, achieving equal pay, or solving the urgent threat of climate change, there is a fundamental structural barrier that prevents progress: rigged electoral maps drawn with surgical precision by politicians to preserve their party’s political power and silence the will of the people.

 

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29Comments

  1. 1.

    germy

    March 10, 2020 at 12:59 pm

    One person.
    One vote.

    I’m always irritated when I tune in to network TV primary election coverage and see them “calling” states for this or that winner, while people are still lined up waiting to vote.  They’re overeager with their projections.

    The primary goes on too long, but the coverage on primary election nights is too quick.  They’re too anxious to be the first with a scoop.

  2. 2.

    Marcopolo

    March 10, 2020 at 1:04 pm

    So the head of elections posted her own tweet to explain what happened–if you don’t click through to watch she says the poll worker entered his information incorrectly reversing his last & first names when entering the data.

    Comment regarding the incident with Mayor @QuintonLucasKC from @kceb Democratic Election Director, Lauri Ealom. pic.twitter.com/YfBK9eG1V6— Bridgett King (@PhD_Unicorn) March 10, 2020

  3. 3.

    cmorenc

    March 10, 2020 at 1:05 pm

    Especially if the polls moving through summer / early fall continue to show Trump significantly trailing, but still possibly competitive in swing states where the Secretary of State office is held by a Republican, expect even more aggressive voter roll purges and other measures (provision of inadequate voting equipment at certain D-leaning precincts to generate long, discouraging lines). The GOP knows that without the aggressive voter-roll purges in 2000, Al Gore would have won Florida (and the Presidency) by a modest but clear one to two point margin – and that without Brian Kemp being simultaneously Secretary of State and the R candidate for governor helping himself with aggressive voter purges, it’s questionable whether he could have beaten Stacey Abrams in the 2018 governor’s race – or for that matter, without voter suppression in Florida, Andrew Gillum would likely have won the Governorship instead of DeSantis and Bill Nelson would still be a US Senator instead of Scott aka Lord Voldemart.

  4. 4.

    Matt McIrvin

    March 10, 2020 at 1:07 pm

    @Marcopolo: Which isn’t much of an excuse–that just means that people with names that are unfamiliar to the poll workers, so they can’t tell which is the given name (or otherwise enter them incorrectly), are at a disadvantage.

  5. 5.

    PST

    March 10, 2020 at 1:09 pm

    I’m off to vote in a few minutes. Chicago does a fantastic job, in my opinion, of making voting easy. There are plenty of sites open well in advance of the big day. You can vote by mail if you want to. They mail your registration information regularly, and whenever I’ve moved I’ve been followed by the information I need to transfer to my new ward and precinct. Lines have always been short (I don’t know if that is true for everyone or if I’ve just been in favored neighborhoods), and I’m always treated with courtesy. It is surprisingly fast and easy to vote in the big downtown center than will take early voters from anywhere in the city. I know we have a reputation, but Chicago voting is great.

  6. 6.

    bluehill

    March 10, 2020 at 1:10 pm

    Kind of related is checking if you need real id to vote in November. I’m not sure if it’s required in some states or all states, but have heard that it’s a pain to get one.

  7. 7.

    HRA

    March 10, 2020 at 1:10 pm

    Over here in WNY the county election board sends an id card before every election. I always keep the last one in case a new one is not sent.

  8. 8.

    Marcopolo

    March 10, 2020 at 1:15 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: Yeah, the poll worker should have asked to verify.  I’m a MO voter and over the past year we’ve gone from having the big paper print out of all the voters in a precinct lying on the table to poll workers using iPads to look up information.  So you used to be able to see if the poll worker was looking in the right place.  Where I live there is a person with the same first & last name (different MI & address) as me in the precinct.  There were several times that poll workers started to initial (to indicate a vote) by his name instead of mine.  Since I could see what was happening I could stop them.

    Also, now when I vote they don’t do any data entry for me, just scan the bar code on my DL.  The voter ID cards that get mailed prior to election also have the bar codes on them so I’m not sure why the mayor wouldn’t have either of those unless he was testing to see if poll workers would demand he have them (the voter photo ID law requiring their use was thrown out by the MO Supreme Court a few months ago but there is a lot of confusion still).

  9. 9.

    Served

    March 10, 2020 at 1:18 pm

    @PST:  They really do a great job. I moved two weeks before the 2018 midterms, which was too late to change my registration. Since then, my old condo sold, and my registration was marked as “Inactive.” Took five minutes to enter my new address, the site confirmed it had matched my existing personal info. I voted early in the Loop this week, in and out, no issues, no line.

  10. 10.

    Redshift

    March 10, 2020 at 1:20 pm

    Kind of related is checking if you need real id to vote in November.

    Definitely not nationwide, and I would doubt even Republican states are requiring it yet, since a lot of people, including GOP voters, don’t have it yet. It wouldn’t surprise me if they try it in the future. (Actually, it would surprise me, because their ID requirements tend to be tailored to make things easier for GOP voters and harder for Dem voters.)

    Getting one wasn’t much trouble for me, because I have a passport and our DMV is actually competent.

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    March 10, 2020 at 1:24 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: I’m in Misery. They mailed us our voter registration cards about a month ago. It’s right there on our cards. Kind of hard to reverse the names. Maybe the poll worker is dyslexic.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    March 10, 2020 at 1:26 pm

    @Marcopolo: I never show my DL, always the voter ID card. So far they’ve never argued, but I live in a very small, rural precinct.

  13. 13.

    JPL

    March 10, 2020 at 1:30 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly: The voter I.D card is useless in GA. To renew my license it cost me close to !00.00 dollars since I had to get info from the state of CA.

    I did vote for Joe yesterday though so that felt good.

  14. 14.

    hueyplong

    March 10, 2020 at 1:31 pm

    @bluehill: I got my Real ID in NC this AM.  Materials posted where I got it said it is not needed to vote.

    Was asked if I had registered to vote.  I said I was pleased that she asked.  She said she had to because of a lost lawsuit and that the system won’t even let her advance to finish the process until I signed a pad saying I decline to register because I am already in.

    She was not happy, which increased my pleasure.

  15. 15.

    Duane

    March 10, 2020 at 1:38 pm

    Forty years of voting in Missouri and never a problem. Then my name didn’t exactly match with  the one the new system had. Went to the office fixed the problem and discovered that 10,000 voters in this county were on the list to be removed.

  16. 16.

    mrmoshpotato

    March 10, 2020 at 1:39 pm

    @PST:

    Chicago does a fantastic job, in my opinion, of making voting easy.

    True!  I have my ballot filled out halfway because I’m still researching judges, but VOTE BY MAIL ROCKS!  (Yes, the touchscreen early voting with the paper printout is good too.)

    I know we have a reputation

    A reputation for being an awesome city? ?

  17. 17.

    New Deal democrat

    March 10, 2020 at 1:43 pm

    I want to emphasize again that we do not have to beg the courts to do something about gerrymandering and voter suppression at the Congressional level. All it would take are Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress plus a Democratic President. That’s because the Constitution, Article I, Section 4 gives Congress the right to determine the “time, place, and manner” of its own elections. For example, many states had “at large” elections for Congress until Congress outlawed them in 1842.

    While States can run their own elections, and Article II of the Constitution gives the States the right to determine how presidential Electors are decided (they don’t even have to hold elections, the State Legislature could appoint them – and if memory serves, that’s how South Carolina did it for a long time), *all* of these suppression efforts that you read about can be squelched at the Congressional level. A State would then have to explain to its own voters/citizens why the same standards weren’t being applied to Presidential and State elections.

  18. 18.

    Marcopolo

    March 10, 2020 at 1:46 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly: You’re right, even if he was presenting a utility bill to test the poll worker (to see if they would require him to produce a photo ID which is not required) whatever he gave them should have had his name on it.

    But then the mayor’s name is Quinton Lucas!  One of those damned first name last name people.

  19. 19.

    Gravenstone

    March 10, 2020 at 2:00 pm

    @bluehill: First bullet point of this site – no state currently requires Real ID to vote. However, as they advise, some states will now only allow Real ID once time comes for renewal, so it would become a problem going forward.

  20. 20.

    wmd

    March 10, 2020 at 2:01 pm

    I’ve been asking All on the Line to get information on candidates for state legislative races posted for about the past 7 months.

    We need to be supporting these candidates – both now so we get candidates that support better policies for the general election, and later so the maps drawn are fair. Please ask them to list candidates (with their websites) without doing any endorsing. We can decide who to support after reading about them.

  21. 21.

    kindness

    March 10, 2020 at 2:05 pm

    I have a friend that moved from Ca to Missouri after she got married.  I have a hard time understanding why she didn’t insist he move here but…….not my call.  They’re happy so that is all that matters.  I wouldn’t have done it but this isn’t about me.

  22. 22.

    John Revolta

    March 10, 2020 at 2:06 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: When I die, I want to be buried back home in Chicago, so I can still vote.

  23. 23.

    kindness

    March 10, 2020 at 2:16 pm

    Here in California when you get to the polls they have all our information on paper divided into Apha sections and they look them up there.  I know it’s more primitive than on a digital machine but I kind of like it.

  24. 24.

    PST

    March 10, 2020 at 2:51 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: Yes, it is awesome. I even like the play of the seasons. My wife and I went to vote together then had excellent Thai food for lunch next to the polling place. It was almost like a date.

  25. 25.

    Matt McIrvin

    March 10, 2020 at 3:16 pm

    @Marcopolo: We still have the paper printouts at the precinct on Election Day, but when I went to vote early at City Hall in 2016 and 2018 they had some kind of tablet setup. I recall them being able to scan the bar code on my drivers’ license (but stressing emphatically that this was NOT necessary, since Massachusetts doesn’t require any kind of ID, though voters who have fallen onto the inactive list require proof of address to vote on a regular ballot).

  26. 26.

    Brachiator

    March 10, 2020 at 3:16 pm

    I made a video this morning about the importance of voting and then got turned away because I wasn’t in the system even though I’ve voted there for 11 years, including for myself four times! Go figure, but that’s okay. We’ll be back later today!

    Damn. Says it all right there.

  27. 27.

    JAFD

    March 10, 2020 at 3:26 pm

    Greetings from New Jersey !

    To check your registration:

    https://voter.svrs.nj.gov/registration-check

    Download registration form at

    https://www.state.nj.us/state/elections/voter-registration.shtml

    And, for folks voting at new precinct, or the first time;  “If you did not provide identification to the county commissioner of registration or if the identification information could not be verified (i.e., your driver’s license number or the last four digits of your social security number), YOU MAY BE ASKED TO SHOW IDENTIFICATION AT THE POLLING PLACE WHEN YOU GO TO VOTE.

    Identification may include, but not limited to, any Current and Valid Photo ID:

    NJ driver’s license, Military or other Government ID, Student or Job ID, Store Membership Card, United States Passport,

    Or

    Bank statement, Car registration, Government check or document, Non-photo NJ driver’s license, Rent receipt, Sample Ballot, Utility bill, or any other official document.”

    OTOH, if your last name is ‘not spelled like it’s pronounced’, showing the person ‘working the registration book’ an ID will speed things up a bit.  Thanks, very much, for this.  (I’ve been working in The Ironbound, a largely Portugese & Brazilian immigrant neighborhood, so am grateful for this.)

    New Jersey has roughly one polling place for every thousand registered voters.  I’ve worked for the Board of Elections for several years, not seen a waiting line more than five people.

    See you ‘at the firehouse’ in June and November – also the Newark School Board election on April 21 !

  28. 28.

    John Revolta

    March 10, 2020 at 3:36 pm

    @Marcopolo:

    How does a POLL WORKER not recognize the Mayor, and mix up his first and last name?

    What the actual fuck?

  29. 29.

    tam1MI

    March 10, 2020 at 6:30 pm

    I just got back from crushing the dreams and blighting the futures of the Bernie Brats (i.e., I voted for Biden in Michigan ;) ). Despite the fact that my precinct had a new computer system, everything went smoothly. Anecdotally, if Bernie is counting on a huge youth turnout in Michigan to pull him over the line, he’s not getting it in my precinct. I was the youngest person in the room.

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