Following the 2000 presidential election, Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress focused on ensuring that another fiasco similar to the hanging-chad scandal in Florida would not occur again. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 was intended to eliminate the threat of another punch-card scandal by replacing it with that of touch-screen voting booths. In addition to the electronic voting machines — which have already garnered much controversy for repeated glitches — HAVA implemented a unique system of voting registration that essentially moved voter registration databases from the local level to the state level in an effort to centralize voter registration. However, in many states the new, centralized databases have compromised the integrity of the voting system by removing registered voters from the voter rolls based on inconsistencies between documents.
In an interview with Air America Radio, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a voting rights lawyer and the nephew of Sen. Ted Kennedy, stated, “[HAVA] uses a computer system to compare your registration application to all other government records of you in the state … if there is any information on your voter registration that is different than the information on another government record that they find, they remove you from the voting rolls.” The problem can perhaps be seen most clearly in immigrant communities, which tend to vote Democratic. The names of the people in these communities are often misspelled on government records and are thus purged from the voter rolls.
Rather than correcting the flaws that contributed to the 2000 presidential election disaster, HAVA effectively institutionalized “a series of impediments that make it very difficult for Democrats to register, for Democrats to vote and then for Democrats to have their vote counted,” according to Kennedy.
In numerous states, including some key battlegrounds, voters are wrongly being purged from the voter rolls and denied the opportunity to vote in arguably the most significant election in American history. The Republican Party tries to maintain that Obama and ACORN, an organization that its candidate happens to maintain strong connections with as well, are “stealing” votes in their favor. In reality, however, the Republican-endorsed HAVA is disenfranchising and discrediting thousands of potential voters and Democrats.
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