Obama Justice Department Questioning Accuracy Of Indiana's Voter Registration Rolls

The Indiana Legislative Insight's Ed Feigenbaum has an interesting story in the latest edition of his subscriber-only newsletter indicating that the Voting Section in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has written a letter to Secretary of State Charlie White compliance with the National Voter Registration Act's requirements for the timely removal of ineligible voters from the state's registered voter list. According to the letter, the Justice Department complains that "the active voter registrations exceeds the voting age population in 10 percent or more of Indiana's counties." The letter further complains that a large percentage of Indiana's counties had failed to "report undertaking certain standard and expected list maintenance activities."

The Obama Justice Department has recently stepped up efforts to scrutinize state-enacted voter ID laws. The Department is seeking to block enforcement of a recently-enacted voter ID law in the state of South Carolina that is similar to the one Indiana enacted several years ago, which was upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Earlier this week, I reported on a Project Veritas undercover video expose' during Tuesday's New Hampshire presidential primary election showing how individuals posing as dead voters were able to request and be offered ballots to cast in the election without showing identification. When the persons offered to show photo identification, the election workers told them it was not necessary because New Hampshire has no voter ID law. Democrats are now pressing law enforcement officials in New Hampshire to prosecute the Project Veritas crew members for attempting to procure ballots under false pretenses and recording the election workers without their consent. The state's Attorney General has said he is investigating the matter, while Republican lawmakers in the Granite State are urging renewed efforts to enact a voter ID law. The state's governor last year vetoed a voter ID bill passed by the state legislature.

According to Feigenbaum's report, the Justice Department demanded a complete copy of the state's voter registration list by mid-month. Secretary of State Charlie White's office responded to the Justice Department letter by saying the request was "misdirected" because NVRA statutory authority and responsibility is vested in the Indiana Elections Division and the state's 92 county election boards over which White's office has no control. Feigenbaum further reports that the Election Division's staff contests the Justice Department's allegations and conclusions about Indiana's voter registration lists. Feigenbaum wonders whether the letter is a prelude to an effort by the Obama Justice Department to launch a new assault on Indiana's voter ID law.

Ironically, fellow blogger Paul Ogden has recently written about progress that has been made in recent years in Marion County, the state's largest county, to purge ineligible voters from the registered voter list. In 2008, Ogden found that the number of registered voters in Marion County exceeded by at least 5% the number of persons residing in the county of voter registration age according to census data. Three years later, Ogden reported that Marion County had pared down the number of registered voters by nearly 79,000 voters, meaning that about 89% of the county's eligible voters were registered to vote.