CBS Reports Purging of Voter Registration

These stories come up every election cycle. Someone purged 10,000 voter registrations from the system via their personal home computer?? How, in this day and age, is it possible for us to have such rudimentary technology problems with voting? Why would this individual have access to voter registration files from home? That seems an easy fix, doesn't it? Sheesh.

One problem that has previously been noted is that some voters are being improperly removed from the rolls because of clerical errors or small mismatches in names or addresses and may not even find out until they show up and attempt to vote.

However, in addition to accidental errors, there is also a possibility of voter purges being used selectively to target minorities or other groups for partisan purposes. "We don't know all the problems, but we know that there's a huge potential for partisan mischief," Waldman stated.

Although exact figures are difficult to obtain, the report notes that one election official in Mississippi was recently found to have purged 10,000 voters "from her home computer." Another 21,000 voters have been purged in Louisiana.