DOJ supports Ohio in purge of voter rolls disproportionately

On Monday, the Justice Department reversed its stance, arguing that the Ohio policy does not violate the NVRA, since “the NVRA does not prohibit a State from using non voting as the basis for sending a [confirmation] notice.”

>“Registrants who are removed in part because they failed to respond to an address-verification notice are not removed solely for non-voting,” the Justice Department said.

Justin Levitt, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s civil rights division who worked on the Ohio case during the Obama administration, wrote a blog on Monday, calling the reversal from the Justice Department unusual.

>"It's quite rare for the DOJ to change course after a filing a brief in the court of appeals: the Solicitor General's office is often called the 'Tenth Justice,' in part because while reversals happen, there's a thumb on the scale to treat DOJ filings with some internal quasi-precedential weight," Levitt wrote.

Levitt also said it was notable that the signature block does not contain the names of any civil rights attorneys, which he said would be present in the normal course.

Brenda Wright, the vice president of policy and legal strategies at Demos, one of the civil rights group representing the plaintiffs in the Ohio case, called the policy “a direct threat to the fundamental rights of Americans and one more step toward dismantling our democracy.”

>“Yesterday, the Department of Justice abandoned this principled position that it has held for decades through three presidencies,” Wright said in a statement. “By reversing course and choosing to stand with Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted and his practice of purging countless eligible Ohioans from the rosters, the DOJ has confirmed many people’s worst fears that it will no longer work to protect and expand the right to vote, but instead undermine it.”

Husted has argued that the policy removes voters from the rolls to ensure the integrity of elections.

>“This case is about maintaining the integrity of our elections, something that will be harder to do if elections officials are not able to properly maintain the voter rolls,” Husted said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.

According to research by PBS NewsHour Weekend, Ohio’s 20 most populous counties purged more than 200,000 voters in 2015 alone.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case in its upcoming term.

>>165998
So you have to vote once every 6 years or respond to a letter in the mail indicating you still want to retain eligibility in order to remain on the roll. What is the problem with this? If you can't be bothered to vote for 3 rounds of house representatives, 2 senatorial elections, 2 presidential elections or any of the local/state elections, can you really argue that you should remain on the roll as a "voter"?

>>166032
The problem is it is without justification except to disenfranchise democrats. Voter rolls are already regularly vetted on basis of whom has died and who is moving.
This simply adds an extra layer of bureaucracy and people are inevitably not going to receive the letter or forget the letter and every election people are going to realize they missed the opportunity to vote, and it's disproportionately targeting voters of the opposition party.

>>166033
How does this disproportionately target Democrats? I didn't see anything in the article that implied this would disproportionately affect any one political party over the other unless their voters are inherently less likely to vote. A simple automated system will be able to scan for how long it has been since a person cast a vote and send out letters/remove people so the additional bureaucracy should be minimal. And once again if you fail to vote for 6 years, then you really haven't been paying attention.

>>166037
I think they made the statement because ohio was a blue state during the obama admin, but I agree that it's a pretty weak assessment given that ohio has a history of flipping.

>>166033
I also don't see how it would affect one party more than the others. Don't you think it would entice members of opposition parties to vote, especially if the party is in opposition to the incumbent?

>>165998
Democrats like voter confusion. It's easier to commit fraud.

>>166032
Liberals think so low black people that they think that they are in capable of doing that. It's the same excuses they used for their anti id argument.

>>166032

Because it stops dead people from voting, which is a major democrat voting block in every state

Democrats on suicide watch.

>>166188
Lot of dem voters skip the midterm elections and would get hit harder than rep. Shouldn't hit either at all but not everyone is up to speed on civics and one side noticeably moreso

>>166265
>skipping midterm elections
Not voting for 2 years gives you the warning. You aren't removed until 6 years without voting. That would mean skipping at least 1 presidential election

>>166287
This is assuming they keep up on mail/bills. Look I get it it shouldn't be possible but there are a lot in my area that would fuck this up (and them not voting would be an improvement)

6 years is a really, /really/ long amount of time. If you can't even vote once in that time frame, you shouldn't even be on the roll and more than likely, you don't even pay attention to politics in the first place. Or your fucking dead. I'm not American, but this sort of system in place is actually a positive for a country as big as it. It'd make managing the voter count much simpler. The government wouldn't have to care as much about dead people voting and it'd give more accurate numbers on voter counts. It would also probably help encourage non-voters to actually vote if they are already registered.

If you can't even vote once in six fucking years, you probably just don't care at all.