NY Courts Packed With Voters Who Showed Up To Vote and Found Their Name Missing From The List

[garybeck]

Courts are packed with cases of people whose voter registrations aren't on file for some reason

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau


First published: Tuesday, October 28, 2008

http://timesunion.com/TUNews/author/AuthorPage.aspx?AuthorNum=82

A dramatic presidential race has prompted voter registration drives
nationwide, and New York is no exception. Everyone expects long lines at the
voting booth on Nov. 4.

But first comes a different kind of crunch: Local courts already are seeing
an influx of people who, for whatever reason, are not listed as registered
voters and are petitioning a judge to be enrolled.

While county boards of election typically have judges available on Election
Day to rule on such cases, voters this year are heading to court days or
even weeks ahead of time.

In Saratoga County, they've even set aside mornings to settle registration
disputes.

"We're letting them come in from 8:30 a.m. to noon," said Saratoga County
Judge Jerry Scarano. "We think election day is going to be very busy."

"They're being swamped," agreed Michael Guiry, a retiree who this year moved
back to Edinburgh, in Saratoga County, from Florida to be near his family.

Guiry and his wife registered to vote when they got their New York driver's
licenses, but when Guiry applied for a hunting license a few weeks ago and
double-checked his voter status, he wasn't listed. So he drove to Saratoga
for a hearing before Scarano, who put him on the voter rolls.

"We have to go after school," said Jean Harsen of Kinderhook, who plans to
take her 18-year-old son, Johnathan, to Columbia County Court this week.

Harsen said Johnathan registered at a booth set up by Barack Obama
supporters at the Columbia County Fair, but the county Board of Elections
never got his registration.

There are lots of reasons why registrations don't show up: Sometimes they're
simply lost, or the people running the voting drives forget to turn them in.

"It's incumbent upon the people who are doing these drives to bring these
forms in," said Geeta Cheddie, acting election commissioner in Columbia
County.

She recounted several stories in which people claimed they had sent in
registration cards, but after double-checking realized they hadn't - or had
misplaced the cards altogether.

Geddie said she wasn't sure what happened with Harsen's registration.

"The courts are always a recourse," she said, adding that she's already
referred a few unregistered people to the courthouse in Hudson.

Nor is it the presidential race alone that's sparking the increase in court
visits.

The state Board of Elections last year put registration lists online so that
voters can check their status. But even that good work has been complicated
by the fact that the state board in Albany was swamped last month with
thousands of mail-in registration cards that people printed out from the Web
site of Rock the Vote, a nationwide campaign to boost voting by young
people.

Normally, individuals register at their local county board of elections,
since those are the official repositories for voter rolls. But Rock the Vote
had people send registrations to the state, which is required to accept all
received before the Oct. 15 deadline. The state office was then obliged to
sort and send the cards to the individual counties.

"Every day we would send out a shipment to each county," said state Board of
Elections spokesman Bob Brehm.

The upshot was that registrations may have been in the mail, but they
weren't yet listed on the Web site - creating another reason for nervous
voters to head for the courts.

Election lawyer Henry Berger said many voters are figuring they can avoid
Election Day hassles by going to court in advance if they have doubts about
their registration status.

"Some people are getting more sophisticated about this. They are going in
early,'' he said.

Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or [e-mail]

[lebkuchen]

1. this is shocking to me, despite knowing that the GOP will cheat

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

4. Yes, the scary GOP government of New York. n/t

[nykym]

2. If you want to be sure

http://www.canivote.org/

Check if your registered

[williesgirl]

3. This link should have it's own thread to make sure registrations still good. rec'd

[Qutzupalotl]

7. Another good one (better IMO)

http://www.voteforchange.com

[MEDICONCALL]

6. CANIVOTE WEBSITE is Excellent-Take it a step further

Great website. In addition to checking if you are registered to vote call your elections office AFTER YOU VOTE to VERIFY YOUR VOTE WAS COUNTED. I live in a state where we can vote at the polls or via mail in ballot. A lot of things get lost in the mail. Does anyone know if there is a systematic way or cohesive policy that provides a check and balance on the voting system? At a minimum everyone should be given a receipt telling them if their vote was or was not counted and if it was not counted, the reason why.

[Skittles]

8. EXCELLENT SUGGESTION

welcome to DU, MEDICONCALL :hi:

[TexasObserver]

5. the real purpose of voter registration is to LIMIT and SUPPRESS the vote

Every law they pass is to further that GOP goal.

They want to keep voters from voting, except in their boxes.

[Wilms]

9. .