I just posted two relevant articles from the Patch.com
- ICE typographical mistake concerning the name of a resident leads to family disaster
- NY State to hand over Board of Election (BoE) voter registration data to Trump
Anyone who has ever volunteered to do some canvassing (or even phone banking) based on voter information, which ultimately comes from the BoE, knows how a very large number of entries are in error. The errors range from
- is no longer at current address
- address doesn’t exist
- has different party registration than what is stated on the record
- has changed their name
- name not accurately spelled
- recently deceased. etc.
In fact, maintaining accurate records is a “Sisyphus task” as you can easily imagine. Volunteers that go door-to-door have an important role. They report to the BoE that a given voter is no longer at the indicated address, for example. This is done electronically via voter data programs. The BoE should be constantly updating their info, but it takes them a long time…
I know a personal story regarding a mistake by immigration. A Swiss friend applied for citizenship but was denied based on a mistake regarding citizenship. They had confused birth place (in Africa) with citizenship (Swiss). Quotas for immigration, based on citizenship, have existed for a very long time. They differ depending on the country of origin. They are differently enforced depending on the political party in power. My friend, a green card holder in the US for 26 years, waited 10 years after applying for citizenship in part due to the clerical error. Good legal help was required (not available to everyone).
Why should you worry about NYS BoE sharing their voter info with the Trump administration’s task force on “voter fraud”?
Just imagine that you are a registered Republican. BoE however has erred and lists you as a “U” (unaffiliated), or even worse a “D” (Democrat). These are not fictitious examples! Perhaps, because your name sounds foreign or raises a red flag, Trump’s commission now flags you as a potential person having committed voter fraud and your right to vote is placed on hold… Ofcourse this shouldn’t happen to anyone, “R”, “U” or “D”. But voter fraud didn’t happen either. The “voter fraud” commission is all about disenfranchising targeted voters.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander. (please share with your Republican friends)
I checked the lawsuit against the voter fraud commission brought by “Common Cause”.
Here is a quote:
“The Commission’s first project is to assemble a national voter file and compare this information to data sets maintained by other federal agencies (including the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration) in order to discover the names of individuals that it believes are ineligible to vote.
To carry out this review, it initially gave all 50 states and the District of Columbia a deadline of July 14, 2017 to comply with a sweeping request for their residents’ voting and other personal data, including information regarding the quintessentially First Amendment-protected activities of voting history and party affiliation”
So, if you are on the Board of Elections List but for some reason not on the SS list or the Homeland Security list, you are in trouble. Which brings me back to errors! THESE LISTS ARE FULL OF ERRORS. How many errors?
Social security lists the wrong person as dead in numerous cases every year:
That fatal mistake affects about 6,000 people a year, according to the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General. And that figure is actually lower than the estimated 12,000 inaccurately reported as dead in 2011, the last time the inspector general did an audit of the data.
And Homeland Security makes errors too:
“Recent data suggests that in 2010 well over 4,000 US citizens were detained or deported as aliens, raising the total since 2003 to more than 20,000,..”
R&R - Reachout and Rebuild 