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‘Inactive’ NY Voters Shouldn’t Be Removed From Voting List: Lawsuit
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Oct 15, 2019
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Scott Heins / Gothamist
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Oct 15, 2019
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The New York State Board of Elections will be on trial in federal court on Tuesday, facing allegations that current state law violates the National Voter Registration Act.
The good government group Common Cause New York is suing the state BOE, arguing that state law makes it too easy to remove names from the list of “active” voters used at poll sites, which then leads to voters using problematic affidavit ballots, or becoming disenfranchised entirely.
The names of registered voters removed from the list are designated “inactive.” There are more than one million inactive voters across New York State—with more than half a million in New York City.
The case stems from an investigation of the Brooklyn voter purge, where the New York City Board of Elections illegally removed more than 100,000 voters from the rolls ahead of the 2016 presidential primary.
“We came across many voters who weren't purged...but who nonetheless for some reason went to the polling place and found that their name wasn't on the list,” said John Powers, an attorney with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which filed the 2016 voter purge lawsuit, also for Common Cause New York, against the New York City Board of Elections.
Powers said this other group of voters experienced many of the same problems and were ultimately disenfranchised just the same as voters who had been purged. “We wanted to help them as well,” he said.
One of the major issues that Powers and the Lawyers Committee found was related to another troubled agency: the US Postal Service, which just last year found more than 500 absentee ballots months after the 2017 general election that it never delivered to the New York City Board of Elections.
Under state law, the State Board will designate a voter as “inactive” if the post office returns mail to the Board as undeliverable or there is a question about whether a voter still resides at a specific address. As soon as the Board sends a notice asking a voter whether they still reside at a given address, that voter is designated as “inactive.”
The National Voter Registration Act sets out very specific procedures a state must follow before it can remove a voter from the list of active voters. Either a voter notifies the Board in writing of a move, or the voter fails to respond to a notice seeking confirmation that a voter is still at a given address and that voter fails to vote in two consecutive federal elections. States can not remove a voter just because they think the person may have moved.
“We found that the postal service was having major problems and alleging that voters had moved when they really hadn't, resulting in them going to the polling place and finding that their names had been kicked off the rolls,” Powers explained. Many of these voters were here in New York City and disproportionately were lower income voters and communities of color.
When the Lawyers Committee wrote a letter to the State Board of Elections notifying them of the situation, the State Board replied saying this was a requirement under state law and the only way to change it would be through legislation or through the courts. The Lawyers Committee filed the complaint in September 2017 on behalf of Common Cause New York and its members.
“Voters who have registered, who have voted previously should not be removed from the voter rolls simply because something has happened to a piece of mail,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York. “The federal statute really requires more time before somebody can be removed from the active rolls,” she added.
The start of the trial is welcome news for Lauren Wolfe, a voter in Brooklyn who was forced to use an affidavit ballot in the 2016 general election because poll workers could not find her name in the book, only to find out in March 2017 that her vote wasn't tallied.
“It was horrifying to learn—months after the fact—that my vote never counted,” said Wolfe, who is one of the voters represented by Common Cause in this case. “Our government has a duty to ensure that no one is ever disenfranchised, whether through a procedural or intentional error. Now is the time to fix things in New York, at the very least, as we gear up toward yet another highly contentious election in which every vote must matter.”
The bench trial begins on Tuesday before Judge Alison Nathan in the Southern District. The proceedings are expected to last several days before Judge Nathan issues a decision.
Tagged
voter purge
Board of Elections
Brigid Bergin
Brigid Bergin is an award-winning senior reporter on the People and Power desk. She is fiercely committed to telling stories that help people engage and support democracy. In 2022, she hosted a live, ten-week call-in politics show ahead of the midterm elections called The People's Guide to Power. Brigid's reporting in 2017 included some of the first coverage of a political newcomer now known as AOC. In 2016, she broke the news of a voter purge in Brooklyn just days before New York’s presidential primary, triggering city, state and federal investigations. Brigid also guest hosts The Brian Lehrer Show and All Of It. She graduated from the University at Albany and the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-723-4719.
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