If I'm late to this party just let me know and I'll delete. CNN.com has a story up now about up to 50,000 new voters in Georgia having been been purged (even after being informed they were registered, and almost certainly most of them erroneously), with insufficient time to correct the mistake. This is apparently in violation of Federal law.
There's apparently a lawsuit on the books over this:
A lawsuit has been filed over Georgia's mismatch system, and the state is also under fire for requesting Social Security records for verification checks on about 2 million voters -- more requests than any other state.
One of the lawyers involved in the lawsuit says Georgia is violating a federal law that prohibits widespread voter purges within 90 days of the election, arguing that the letters were sent out too close to the election date.
But the article isn't clear on the status of the case.
This diary summarizes other states, actions taken, and recommendations, but doesn't explicitly address Georgia.
More from CNN:
Georgia's Secretary of State Karen Handel, a Republican who began working on purging voter rolls since she was elected in 2006, said that won't happen. If there are errors, she said, there is still plenty of time to resolve the problems. iReport.com: Are you voting early?
Handel says she is not worried the verification process will prevent eligible voters from casting a ballot.
"In this state and all states, there's a process to ensure that a voter who comes in -- even if there's a question about their status -- that they will vote either provisional or challenge ballot, which is a paper ballot," she said.
"So then the voter has ample opportunity to clarify any issues or address them," Handel added. "And I think that's a really important process."
...
"This is about ensuring the integrity of our elections," she said.
Interesting that these Republicans -- whether they are outside the Secretary of State office (as in Ohio) or in charge of it (as in Georgia) all use the same talking points.
Meanwhile citizens like Kyla Berry mentioned in the story may not even GO to the polls, having been told they were purged.
An illegal purge, based on data (Social Security data) that is not supposed to be matched against except in extremis, performed during an illegal timeframe, targeting new voters which are overwhelmingly Democratic, resulting in a letter that tells them they are not registered to vote, arriving past the time provided for dispute or correction...
What can this possibly be other than...
Handel denied the efforts to verify the vote are suppression.
UPDATE 1: To help calm those with exploding heads, hair torn out, tears of rage, etc., this from gchaucer2
All of these voter suppression tactics are being challenged vigorously right now. Courts are addressing the suits on an expedited basis. Lawyers from the private sector are stripping the reins from the DOJ which is doing nothing other than abetting supression.
It is impossible prior to the next Congress and Administration to pressure the DOJ to do its mandated duty. There will be a purge at Justice and concerted effort to standardize registration requirements.
It is not too little too late.
And this from chimpy:
Maybe we can't fix every case, but we can help fix a lot of them by funding and volunteering for Election Protection.
We can publicize every case of vote fraud (actual), and vote suppression. Spread the news, to let this year's failed power-grab forever stain the Republican party's character the same way Katrina, Iraq and overleveraged Wall St speculation have stained their philosophy.
And, we can push so hard this week that McCain and his party lose way beyond the margin of theft next Tuesday. Your co-worker will get his registration fixed sometime. What we do this week could determine whether or not there's a Republic still functioning to use it in.
Also, CNN has updated the original article (linked above) with more national context (Wisconsin, Ohio) and more comment from anti-suppression voices.
UPDATE 2: