"Sometimes Vote Suppression is as Important as Vote-Getting": Cleaning up WA Voter Rolls
Published on Washblog on June 29, 2007 by Noemie Maxwell

Who's watching the regular "cleanups" of the  Washington State Voter Registration Database (VRDB)?  Who is monitoring the way that new voter registrations are handled? Washington is fundamentally a good-government state. But we are in a time where, nationally and on a state level, tremendous pressure is being exerted at every level of our system to win elections by discouraging, challenging, and disenfranchising voters who are likely to vote Democratic. From the perjurious voter challenges by Republican Lori Sotelo in 2005 to Lying voter-suppression Robo-calls on the eve of elections, to this year's firing of Attorney General John McKay by the Bush administration for the failure to prosecute the phantom of individual voter fraud -- and more -- we have ample evidence that the Republican Party is using all means possible to shove Democratic votes and voters out of the voting game.  We won't know how much they're succeeding in this goal unless we institute comprehensive citizen oversight.  

I recently received an email from a Democrat concerned that maintenance of Washington's Voter Registration Database (VRDB) may be resulting in voter disenfranchisement. I called the Secretary of State's office (SOS) and spoke with Pam Floyd, Assistant Director of Elections, who gave me a general overview of that office's practices and referred me to Brenda Galarza, the public records official for the SOS, for more in-depth information. I followed through on that with a public records request (2). Since January of 2006, about 350,000 voter registrations have been removed from the VRDB.  It appears that about 175,000 of these were since January of this year. (3) There's an awful lot of room in all that database purging and in all those counties for unfair influence and practices to creep in. And the VRDB is not the only place where voting rights are endangered in our state. These are the rights of voters of all political persuasions. Disproportionately, they are the rights of Democrats and of poor and minority voters.

As far back as 1993, Republican Party leaders were demonstrating intent to disqualify, discourage, and otherwise prevent Democratic votes whenever possible. That year, after Christine Todd Whitman won election as Governor of New Jersey, her campaign spokesman was quoted as follows: "We cut the (Democratic) margin in Essex and Hudson (two urban counties with large black and Latino constituencies).  Sometimes vote suppression is as important in this business as vote-getting." (4)

The most recent national efforts to knock Democrats out of the voting game come right out of the office of the US President. David Iglesias, one of the fired U.S. Attorneys, recently told PBS's NOW that he was repeatedly urged by his superiors at the Justice Department to investigate allegations of false voter registrations. After his investigations came up short, Iglesias said, Republican officials got angry and complained to White House aide Karl Rove. Soon after, Iglesias lost his job.

This is not a partisan cause. I believe that, for voter registration; voter roll maintenance; campaign finance; campaign practices; and election integrity, there needs to be comprehensive, well-funded, and ongoing citizen oversight of the following:

1. Are our laws fair? There are many aspects of Washington law that need scrutiny. For example, in a March 2006 report, the Brennan Center indicates that, of all states in the country, only four: Iowa, South Dakota, Texas, and Washington, "take the most extreme position" in processing new voter registrations by rejecting citizen's applications outright if they cannot find an exact match for their Social Security number or license. (5) Perhaps this is fair. But who has looked into it?
2. Are our laws being translated into fair administrative procedures by administrative agencies, such as the county auditors who purge voters from the VRDB?
3. Is law-breaking or mismanagement causing the law to not be properly followed?

I assume that the Democratic Party is working behind the scenes on some or all of this. It is a key stakeholder in the issue. Truly, however, we need to go beyond what is possible and appropriate for a political party to do and find a way to institute comprehensive citizen oversight and civic education. We have seen that a few individuals in Washington have made tremendous contributions toward oversight of election processes. Legislators have acted as well; it is now illegal, for example, to send out fake sex offender notifications for partisan purposes. But more is needed. Where is the progressive movement on this?

A Conversation with Rose Strong: A Washington Republican Activist Trained in Aggressive Challenges of Voters in Minority Areas   It is well established that voter fraud is rare -- and that voter disenfranchisement is common and frequently directed toward minority voters.  So it's sad to see a member of King County Republican Party's advisory board , an African American woman trained by the Local Elections Division of the Republican National Committee, who is proud of her experience in aggressively pursuing minority voter fraud.  Rose Strong has put out on the Internet the most clearcut expressions of a state Republican official that I've yet seen yet of support for Democratic vote suppression. I find her reference to "war" tactics and her own previous threats to bring in federal troops to be downright scary.

According to Strong's page for her 2005 campaign for state Party Chair, she served under President George H. W. Bush "as the Deputy Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, U. S. Department of Transportation, and as Vice Chair of the Georgia State Republican Party."  She is was trained by the Local Elections Division of the Republican National Committee and proudly cites her experience in "aggressively" dealing with illegal voter activities in minority areas

I called Ms. Strong today to ask what she meant by her statement on The Reagan Wing that the "siphoning off of traditional Democrat votes in King and Pierce Counties" was a successful Republican technique in the 2004 election.  Were you referring to the tactic of cleaning up the voter rolls in traditional Democratic-leaning areas, I asked?

No, Strong responded, what she was referring to was the Party's appeal to swing voters and conservative Democrats on the issues. But this quote refers to traditional Democrats, I said. Are you equating conservative Democrats with traditional Democrats?  No, she said. We appealed to traditional Democrats too.

I asked Strong if she thought what Lori Sotelo did with her challenges to King County voters was legal. "Yes, I think that what Lori Sotelo did was legal," she said. "The voter rolls needed cleaning up."  But Sotelo signed affidavits that she had personal knowledge about voters that she didn't have, I said.  'Well, I can't get into all the specifics,' Strong responded.  The Sotelo challenges were focused, I said, on high Democratic voting areas.  And there appears to be a Republican effort on a national level to "vote cage" in minority, poor, and otherwise Democratic areas. Personally, I said, I believe what you were describing here was related to cleaning up voter rolls in Democratic areas as a political tactic.  That's not true, she said.  Republicans don't want to take qualified voters off the rolls.  Voting is an American right.  The voter rolls do need to be cleaned up.  But you need to do it the legal way.'

Is Ms. Strong's denial credible? Here's why I think not:

1. Strong is a knowledgeable, connected, and active political insider within Washington's Republican Party, which has demonstrated a pattern of working to disenfranchise and discourage probable Democratic voters.
2. In Georgia, as she says on her campaign site, she specialized in "aggressively" challenging minority voters on the theory that this illegality "usually occurred in poor minority communities." (Frequently Asked Questions).
3. The plain English-language meaning of the phrase "siphoning off votes" means pulling votes away from one candidate or side to the benefit of another.  It has no sense within it of appealing to people to on the issues.  That's obvious, given the dictionary meaning of the word, siphon, a mechanical term meaning 'drawing off'. It's also obvious in practice, seen if one Googles the terms "siphon" and "vote".
4. Ms. Strong further indicates that she sees persuasion on the issues as less important than war-like tactics. She boasts of "threatening to bring in federal troops" into minority areas. And she states outright that "war" tactics should not be neglected for the sake of "the attractiveness of candidates and messages." (6)

Ms. Strong, having recently come from Georgia, was evidently working hard to tell Washington Republican leaders what she thought they wanted to hear. Was she mistaken? Well, this is a very intelligent person with keen political insight and obviously highly developed social skills. Otherwise she would not have attained the position of Vice Chair of the Georgia State Republican Party. Between early 2003 and late 2005, she reported, she had been busy emceeing at Republican events, Chairing Bush/Cheney for African Americans in Washington, forming coalitions with organizations, registering hundreds of voters who she knew were Republican through churches. Clearly, she was thoroughly socialized in the expectations of the Washington State Republican Party.

Perhaps Ms. Strong's statements are more blatant than those of other state Republicans. But it is clearly an emerging aspect of the Republican culture to violate ethics, tradition, and decency in the most public and blatant way possible, as if the corruption of public decency itself is part of their campaign to reshape American politics. Witness Anne Coulter, Pat Robertson, and their death threats, for example. Or consider Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna's use of fake attorney general letterhead to shill for a Republican candidate. We can take nothing for granted in a world like this. Please, dear progressives -- those of you who have influence, organizing skill, and resources: let's figure out some comprehensive way to protect votes and voters in this state.

Many thanks to Bob Nelson for sharing his research, which included or led to many of these sources

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Notes

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1. Reality Check: How Long Will Washington State Republicans Remain Deaf and Blind to What Makes It a Minority Party, And When Will The Bleeding Stop?, The Reagan Wing.  Rose Strong, January 10, 2005.
2. On Friday (7/27/07) I emailed a request to Brenda Galarza, the public records official for the SOS, for a numerical breakdown on all removed voter registrations from all counties for all reasons since January, 2006.
3. I extrapolate this by comparing a February, 2007 press release from the SOS that reported that about 175,000 had been removed up to that point and the July 27, 2007 Voter Registration report, which shows a total of 352,927 voter registrations removed.
4. Berry, "Democratic National Committee v. Edward J. Rollins," Footnote 28. Quoted in REPUBLICAN BALLOT SECURITY PROGRAMS:  VOTE PROTECTION OR MINORITY VOTE SUPPRESSION--OR BOTH? A REPORT TO THE CENTER FOR VOTING RIGHTS & PROTECTION  SEPTEMBER 2004 By Chandler Davidson, Tanya Dunlap, Gale Kenny, and Benjamin Wise, Republican Ballot Security Programs
5. Making the List: Database Matching and Verification Processes for Voter Registration
6. Frequently Asked Questions, Accessed 7/29/07. As noted on the site, these are Rose Strong's responses to a questionnaire offered by Tim Goddard, who operates "Flag of the World," a political weblog that focuses primarily on Washington state politics. These questions were asked of all State Chair candidates who ran in 2005. "(W)e decided to leave this on Rose's website because her views still remain the same."

   The quote below is excerpted from one of Rose Strong's answers on the FAQ
   I know that the Southern states had to figure out ways to clean up voter registration lists to ensure, as much as is possible, that dead people and others not eligible to vote did not participate. I was appointed to work in minority communities to aggressively help clean up illegal activities, especially as they related to poll managers and absentee ballots. The problems usually occurred in poor minority communities, and Democrats were very adept at “creative” balloting. I even threatened to bring in federal troops in some of the precincts for which I was responsible. Regardless of the attractiveness of candidates and messages, if the Chairman of the Party does not understand the "war" Republicans are in on election day in a state like this, we will continue to lose.