Just call their name…but they won’t be thereA huge voting roll purge has been under way in Indiana, lowering the number of eligible voters even without the recent Supreme Court ruling on an Indiana case that people at polls must present government-issued I.D.s.
BlackBoxVoting says 1.1 million registrations were canceled. A disproportionate number — about 125,000 — of them were in just two counties. Strangely, these counties are in the only area of the state with which I’m familiar, having spent a few weeks with an aunt who taught at Purdue University.
Lake County, the home of Gary, Indiana, has spawned the Jackson Five and a great old musical (The Music Man) and and has been referred to as “the second most liberal county in America.” Lake County has one of the heaviest concentrations of African-American voters that you’ll find anywhere in the USA.
Nearby Porter County, the home of Valparaiso, is 95% white and went solidly for Bush in the 2004 election. It also has a lot of college kids.
For whatever reason, these two counties had … what … massive data entry problems? Exceptionally messy records? Lots of dead people who climbed back into their graves? Or will we see a lot of disappointed voters on Tuesday, when they perhaps learn that they were among the lucky million people who got purged?
HERE’S WHERE THE HEAVIEST PURGES ARE:
Lake 137,164 — 48 percent (Gary)
Porter 124,958 — 115 percent (Valparaiso)
Marion 68,120 — 10 percent (Indianapolis)
Monroe 66,009 — 85 percent (Bloomington)
Tippecanoe 53,456 — 58 percent
Madison 42,952 — 47 percent (Anderson)
Hamilton 42,325 — 26 percent
The counties are just this side of the Illinois state line, a stone’s throw from Chicago (yes, I visited while I was there). We also went to Bloomington, where my aunt’s former employer, Indiana University, is located. With IU, Purdue, Valparaiso, Marian College, Anderson University, Calumet, and Ivy Tech, the population of college students in these areas is disproportionately high. I think it was the very late ’70s when I was there but I do remember being assured it was full of enlightened folks. Too bad they can’t vote.
Update: This came in an email tonight from Steven Rosenfeld, Election Reporter, AlterNet.org — FYI. Bev Harris’ report that 1.13 million Indiana voters have been purged that you posted on Pensito Review and AlterNet’s PEEK is incorrect, and even she posted a correction on her website. That is why I told the AlterNet managing editors to take it down as a PEEK post a few minutes ago.
I did the independent research yesterday - as well as sending her info late Sunday from other sources, ie, the Federal Election Assistance Commission, which showed she was misinterpreting a page on the Indiana Secy of State Website for ‘cancellations.’ In an arcane bureaucratic way, that meant changes in the voter file that ‘cancelled the previous registration record,’ not removed voters. It could to correct typos, addresses, etc.
I also got figures a from the IN SOS this morning that showed the figure was closer to 620,000 voters purged since June 2006,. If you consider that the purging process mostly is a 4 year process and that 620k figure is 12.5% of the state’s voter rolls, then this is alarmist news.
I am not in the business of defending Republican secretaries of state, but being wrong is being wrong.
Moreover, in the news reporting today, there has not been wide spread reports of people showing up at the polls and being told they were not on voter lists because of purges. Are there other issues? Yes, but not that one.
