BREAKING: 1 million REGISTRATIONS purged in IN !

Just saw this on blackboxvoting.org and had to get it out there!

5-4-08: One million purged - The Incredible Disappearing Indiana Voter Rolls
In April 2008 when Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita announced the release of "record high" voter registration rolls, with 4.3 million voters set to vote in the Tuesday May 6 primary, he didn't mention that a whopping 1,134,427 voter registrations have been cancelled.

One quarter-million of them come from just two northwestern Indiana counties: Lake and Porter. Lake County reports purging 137,164 voters and neighboring Porter County cancelled out 124,958 voters.

Lake County has one of the heaviest concentrations of African-American voters that you'll find anywhere in the USA. (snip) Nearby Porter County, the home of Valparaiso, is 95% white and went solidly for Bush in the 2004 election. It also has a lot of college kids.

Here are the locations of the heaviest purging:

Lake 137,164 48% (Gary)
Porter 124,958 115% (Valparaiso)
Marion 68,120 10% (Indianapolis)
Monroe 66,009 85% (Bloomington)
Tippecanoe 53,456 58%
Madison 42,952 47% (Anderson)
Hamilton 42,325 26%

The percentage represents the ratio of the number of purges to the current voter list. Example: If a location currently has 100,000 voters on its rolls, and purged 53,000 along the way, we assign a ratio of 53% to the purge vs. current list.

For those familiar with Indiana, these areas of purging are predominantly African American or College Student areas.  

UPDATE 1:
Here is the original article, with various links.

UPDATE 2:
Here is the original source material from the Indiana Secretary of State website used to construct the article. The date of the document is 04/30/2008 05:37 PM.

UPDATE 3:
I believe there is a benefit to getting information out quickly to the DK community. The DK community is filled with thousands of individuals who may have access to insights that each diary writer does not have. For example, we now have a very nice response diary up that points out that voter registration purges are not necessarily a bad thing, especially when a state has allowed too much time to pass since the last purge.

This is what I believe is a strength of DK. Lots of informed people who can take on shady information and shed light on the subject.

I am sorry that so many people are angry that (1) I quoted blackboxvoting.org information (despite it being in line 1 of my diary), (2) I did not immediately provide a link to the Indiana Secretary of State source material, which in fact, confirms that 1,134,427 voters were purged (for whatever reason).

The three snips from the original blackboxvoting.org article are ALL FACTUALLY ACCURATE. No hype. Look at the SOS document if you have a problem with that.

Now, given that cleaning the voter registration records is not necessarily a bad thing, we need to be vigilent. Did people go this bonkers when Texas did redistricting? Redistricting happens all the time, and is a valid form of straightening things out. It is also a way to disenfranchise voters.

If you do not think that numerous members of the African American community were not accidentally purged in Indiana as part of this routine, then you have been asleep at the wheel of democracy for a few years. Remember the eight hour waits to vote in predominantly AA neighborhoods in Ohio? I do. It was unfair and un-American.

UPDATE 4:
I've changed the name from "1 million voters purged in IN " to "1 million REGISTRATIONS purged in IN !"  Wish I knew how to do a strike out in the title. Rec box still shows old title, for some reason.