Justice Sues New York
The United States Department of Justice has brought suit against the New York State Board of Elections, challenging the state's failure to comply with the Help America Vote Act's 2006 deadlines. The complaint may be found here, and the N.Y. Times has this report. This is the first lawsuit that DOJ has filed to compel compliance with these requriements, although it entered into a memorandum of agreement with California over that state's failure to comply in October of last year.

DOJ alleges that New York has failed to comply with HAVA's 2006 requirements with respect to both voting systems (Section 301) and statewide registration lists (Section 303). One of the voting systems requirements with which New York is allegedly out of compliance is that every polling place have at least one unit accessible to people with disabilities. In fact, DOJ alleges that the state board of elections hasn't approved any system that's compliant with HAVA's requirements. As for the statewide registration list, the complaint alleges that the state hasn't taken adequate steps to meet HAVA's requirements, including entering into an agreement with the Social Security Administration to "match" its data against information in statewide registration lists (specifically, the last four digits of voters' social security numbers).

In addition, as a condition on $49 million in federal funds that New York received, it obligated itself to replace punch-card and lever voting equipment in time for the first federal election in 2006. Though this isn't included as a cause of action, the complaint notes that New York is at risk of having to pay back this money.

One of the things to keep an eye on the fine print on what sort of "matching" is required, and the circumstances under which voters' names are removed from the list. While DOJ is right to take action against New York, in my opinion, there's reason to be concerned that DOJ may use its enforcement authority to compel database maintence practices that exceed what HAVA requires, and could result in barriers to the vote -- for example, in people being erroneously struck from registration lists on the ground that there are duplicate registrations or that their information couldn't be "matched" due to a transcription error.

The Brennan Center has recently issued a report on database matching, which highlights the need for attention to this area. According to that report, some states are rejecting registration applications that can't be matched against motor vehicle or social security records, even though data entry errors may be responsible for discrepancies. It's especially important to keep a close eye on the present DOJ's use of its HAVA enforcement power, given its dubious record of enforcing voting rights laws in an apparently partisan manner, which I've discussed here and here. - posted by Dan Tokaji @ 12:17 PM