The Brennan Center for Justice has just posted that Social Security intends to do 'routine maintenance' of its system between Oct 11 - 13.
Why is this important? Election reform expert Wendy Weiser notes that,
A 2002 federal law, the Help America Vote Act, requires all states to "coordinate" their voter registration databases with the Social Security database (and state motor vehicle databases) for the purpose of processing new voter registration forms. For the millions of voters who do not have current driver's licenses and register using the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, state election officials are required to try to match their voter registration information against Social Security records. But if the Social Security database is down—as it will be for four days—they won't be able to do that. Across the country, the processing of these voter registration forms will grind to a halt for four days.
Voter registrars are already maxed out with all the new [Democratic!] registrations, which the Brennan Center mentions may be in the 'millions'. Registrars are working 7 days a week, which means that SS's shutdown of their database will, indeed, affect their work.
This will impede voting for the usual suspects:
"New voters, as well as people who re-register because they have moved, who do not have state-issued driver's licenses or non-driver's IDs. Those citizens are disproportionately older, African-American, and low-income, studies show".
Diane Feinstein has just sent a letter asking SS to delay its maintenance until after the elections, saying that CA and 11 other states will be affected.