Responding to an emergency request from the Trump Administration, the Supreme Court today reversed a lower court ruling and will allow the administration to use a controversial database to challenge voter registrations. Click the title above to read the unsigned opinion of the 6-3 conservative majority and the dissent by Justice Jackson.
Systematic purges of voters using a third-party database are expressly forbidden by the National Voter Registration Act, a fact acknowledged in the decision. To understand how such purges can disenfranchise legally registered voters, read about what happened in Florida’s 2000 election when the state contracted with ChoicePoint, a private company, to produce a list of people on the voter rolls who might not be eligible under Florida law. The resulting massive disenfranchisement of innocent, legally qualified voters would have been even worse had not many supervisors of elections refused to comply with the state’s order. Those innocent citizens denied their right to vote were disproportionately minorities and registered Democrats according to expert testimony.
FFEC Statement on Kobach request on behalf of newly created federal committee