RFK Jr.:
"One of these requirements under HAVA is called "the perfect match" and what that does is little known but it is devastating. A quarter of the voters in Colorado have just been removed from the rolls because of this--just this one scam. And what it does is they use a computer system to compare your registration application to all other government records of you in the state.
OK. That's devastating. What can we do to stop this? I called the Obama office, and they said it's a standing law and not much can be done until the next session.
Here's more from that interview:
"For example, if I registered as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and yet my motor vehicle license said Robert Frances Kennedy Jr. I’d be removed from the rolls. If your initial is different, if you leave an initial out, if you leave a "Jr." out, if you leave a hyphen out in your name. And what they’ve done is a study in New York that said 80% of the errors are errors that were done by state clerks who are taking down this information. And particularly immigrant communities that people tend to vote democratic, people have names...spell Muhammad with an "o" instead of a "u" (crosstalk)
Pap: "Are the democrats suing to stop this?"
Bobby: "No, the democrats are doing nothing to stop it. In New Jersey, which is a swing state, 300,000 voters in New Jersey were just sent letters saying that they are now ineligible to vote. New jersey is nice enough to actually notify them--most states will not even notify them. And New Jersey intends to send out 870,000 letters so that is three quarters of a million people off the voting rolls in a state that could decide this vote by 50,000 votes. And these are democrats that are being pushed off the rolls.
Is that it? Is there any way to prevent states from just tossing likely Democratic voters off the rolls en masse like this? What can we do?
Update: Looks like RFK, Jr. was overstating the case. Sam Diener called the Colorado Secretary of State and got some more information:
The Robert F. Kennedy Jr. quotation above is misleading. The figure RFK Jr. was probably referring to is the 19.4% figure who were purged from 4 years ago, not 25% of voters who were "just removed."
I just got off the phone after interviewing Rich Coolidge of the CO Secretary of State's office.
He said CO has about 3 million registered voters.
In the year 20007, just under 200,000 names came up as discrepant when they converted the data from county data to state data. The procedure is then to send these names to county board of elections who send letters to those voters telling them if they don't clear up the discrepancy their registration will be canceled.
Another 90,000 moved from county to county within CO or out of state.
Even if we add these two numbers together, it's about 10% of total registration, and it would be an exaggeration to say all those people were removed from the rolls, because they weren't. There were some additional names which came up as imprisoned or deceased, but that number is apparently less than these other two categories.
As for the "just been removed" claim, Coolidge says that since January 1, 2008, just over 45,000 registrations have been canceled, and of those 25,000 have moved (and, as long as they re-register in the new location, not then lost as voters). But even if we count all 45,000 of those canceled registrations, if these figures are correct, that's 1.5% of the registered voters in CO, not 25%.
I asked Rich Coolidge about the ethnic breakdown of these numbers and he said they don't have data by race so they don't know.
I ran these figures by the folks in Greg Palast's office for a comment, and Zach Roberts said the Secretary of State's office had refused to return their phone calls or email.
Reality is bad enough. Let's be careful not to overstate.
I emailed the ring of fire address yesterday but haven't heard back yet.
Thanks, guys.