US Sues Missouri Over Voters in 2004 Election Options

[JasonATexan]

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/po...html?oref=login

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has sued Missouri, a swing state won easily by President George W. Bush, for voting violations in the 2004 election, including registering more people to vote in some counties than their entire voting-age population.

The complaint, filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, said 29 Missouri counties and election jurisdictions had more people registered to vote than there actually were people of voting age living in those areas.

One Missouri county, for instance, showed voter registrations that amounted to more than 150 percent of the true voting-age population in that county.

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan acknowledged the voting irregularities in the 2004 federal election but said in a statement that the Justice Department's decision to file suit was costly and unjustified as the state was working to correct its voters rolls.

``Clearly, a problem exists. It defies common sense that we would have more registered voters than people of voting age in any Missouri county,'' said Carnahan. ``The Secretary of State's office and the Department of Justice share the same goal of ensuring fair and accurate elections.''

The lawsuit also alleges that some voters were removed from registration lists without notification, in violation of the law, while some ineligible voters were not removed.

Missouri was considered among a number of potential swing states in the 2004 election, but ended up with 53 percent voting for Bush and 46 percent going to challenger John Kerry.

[TammyJo58]

Hi!

My question is this; didn't anyone question these bulging voting rolls BEFORE the election? It seems that we are doing things backwards if these things come to light AFTER the election. It seems we have put an awful lot of power into the hands of the County Supervisors of Elections. They are the ones we elect to make sure these voter rolls are correct.

God Bless,
TammyJo58

[MushroomCloud]

Think the Justice Department has been reading about Missouri Election Fraud here at CGCS?

[MushroomCloud]

www.newstribune.com

Posted: Tuesday, Dec 13, 2005 - 05:29:55 am CST

Four states reach election agreement
By The Associated Press



Election officials in four Midwestern states have reached an agreement aimed partly at making sure people aren't registered to vote in multiple states.

The agreement among secretaries of state in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska calls for the creation of a task force to study ways of cross-checking voter registration rolls in the various states.

The task force also is to study joint training of election officials, testing of election systems and ways to improve election security procedures, as well as the creation of standard rules for international election observers.

“This agreement is a commonsense way Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska can work together to clean up our voter lists, improve election security, and increase peoples' confidence in the elections system,” Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan said Monday.

The agreement comes less than a month after the U.S. Justice Department sued Carnahan, claiming Missouri had failed to take reasonable steps to keep its voter rolls up to date. As a result, the Justice Department claimed, Missouri's voter rolls may include some people who have died or moved and exclude others who should still be eligible to vote.

Carnahan spokesman Mike Seitz said the multi-state agreement was not prompted by the Justice Department's lawsuit, although he said it could have implications by helping to clean up voter rolls. Missouri expects to have a new centralized voter registration database running by January.

Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh issued a joint news release with Carnahan announcing the agreement. He said the pact put the four states “clearly ahead of the curve in cooperating to protect the integrity of our elections.”

The agreement, dated Sunday, was signed at the Midwest Election Officials Conference in Overland Park, Kan.