RustyNails
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Jim Crow Returns: Millions of minority voters being suppressed - An Investigation by Al Jazeera
There MUCH, MUCH MORE in the article. Please read it in full. I left out the part where they are specifically targeting Asian Americans. This should get you angered and raging. If your state is one of those participating in the Interstate Crosscheck Program, call you representative and scream like a c-span caller. The Kansas republican Secretary of State is a modern day jim crow racist and I'm afraid his antics will result in republicans winning the state.
Election officials in 27 states, most of them Republicans, have launched a program that threatens a massive purge of voters from the rolls. Millions, especially black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters, are at risk. Already, tens of thousands have been removed in at least one battleground state, and the numbers are expected to climb, according to a six-month-long, nationwide investigation by Al Jazeera America.
At the heart of this voter-roll scrub is the Interstate Crosscheck program, which has generated a master list of nearly 7 million names. Officials says that these names represent legions of fraudsters who are not only registered but have actually voted in two or more states in the same election a felony punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison.
Until now, state elections officials have refused to turn over their Crosscheck lists, some on grounds that these voters are subject to criminal investigation. Now, for the first time, three states Georgia, Virginia and Washington have released their lists to Al Jazeera America, providing a total of just over 2 million names.
The Crosscheck list of suspected double voters has been compiled by matching names from roughly 110 million voter records from participating states. Interstate Crosscheck is the pet project of Kansas controversial Republican secretary of state, Kris Kobach, known for his crusade against voter fraud.
The three states lists are heavily weighted with names such as Jackson, Garcia, Patel and Kim ones common among minorities, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Indeed, fully 1 in 7 African-Americans in those 27 states, plus the state of Washington (which enrolled in Crosscheck but has decided not to utilize the results), are listed as under suspicion of having voted twice. This also applies to 1 in 8 Asian-Americans and 1 in 8 Hispanic voters. White voters too 1 in 11 are at risk of having their names scrubbed from the voter rolls, though not as vulnerable as minorities.
If even a fraction of those names are blocked from voting or purged from voter rolls, it could alter the outcome of next weeks electoral battle for control of the U.S. Senate and perhaps prove decisive in the 2016 presidential vote count.
Its Jim Crow all over again, says the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who cofounded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King, Jr. Lowery, now 93, says he recognizes in the list of threatened voters a sophisticated new form of an old and tired tactic. I think [the Republicans] would use anything they can find. Their desperation is rising.
Mark Swedlund is a specialist in list analytics whose clients have included eBay, AT&T and Nike. At Al Jazeera Americas request, he conducted a statistical review of Crosschecks three lists of suspected double voters.
According to Swedlund, It appears that Crosscheck does have inherent bias to over-selecting for potential scrutiny and purging voters from Asian, Hispanic and Black ethnic groups. In fact, the matching methodology, which presumes people in other states with the same name are matches, will always over-select from groups of people with common surnames. Swedlund sums up the method for finding two-state voters simply matching first and last name as ludicrous, just crazy.
Georgia Democrats angered by stealthy purge
In North Carolina, Republican officials are loudly proclaiming their hunt for alleged double voters using Crosscheck. But in nearby Georgia, Democratic leaders say they are shocked that they have been kept in the dark about the states use of Crosscheck lists and the racial profile of the targeted voters.
Elderly voters board a van that will take them to a polling station in Atlanta on the first day of early voting, Oct. 13, 2014.
Its biased, I think, both in form and intent, says Rep. Stacey Abrams, leader of the Democrats in the Georgia state legislature. But more concerning to me is the fact this is being done stealthfully. We have never had this information presented to us.
Abrams, in her second role as founder of New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan voter registration group, has, in coordination with the NAACP, already sued Georgias Republican secretary of state, Brian Kemp, on behalf of 56,001 voters who filled out registration forms but have yet to see their names appear on voter rolls.
Abrams is especially concerned that the Crosscheck list was crafted by GOP official Kobach. I believe that Kris Kobach has demonstrated a very aggressive animus towards people of color in voter registration, she says. Abrams is now threatening legislative and legal action against Kemp.
There MUCH, MUCH MORE in the article. Please read it in full. I left out the part where they are specifically targeting Asian Americans. This should get you angered and raging. If your state is one of those participating in the Interstate Crosscheck Program, call you representative and scream like a c-span caller. The Kansas republican Secretary of State is a modern day jim crow racist and I'm afraid his antics will result in republicans winning the state.
