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States' Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal - NYTimes.com Page 2 of 4 is Under federal law, election officials are supposed to use the Social Security database to check a registration application only as a last resort, if no record of the applicant is found on state databases, like those for driver's licenses or identification cards. The requirement exists because using the federal database is less reliable than the state lists, and is more likely to incorrectly flag applications as invalid. Many state officials seem to be using the Social Security lists first. In the year ending Sept. 30, election officials in Nevada, for example, used the Social Security database more than 740,000 times to check voter files or registration applications and found more than ~i5,ooo nonmatches, federal records show. Election officials in Georgia ran more than i.9 million checks on voter files or voter registration applications and found more than 260,000 nonmatches. Officials of the Social Security Administration, presented with those numbers, said they were far too high to be cases where names were not in state databases. They said the data seem to represent a violation of federal law and the contract the states signed with the agency to use the database. Last week, after the inquiry by The Times, Michael J. Astrue, the commissioner of the Social Security Administration, alerted the Justice Department to the problem and sent letters to election officials in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. The letters ask the officials to ensure that they are complying with federal law. "It is absolutely essential that people entitled to register to vote are allowed to do so," Mr. Astrue said in a press release. In three states -Colorado, Louisiana and Michigan -the number of people purged from the election rolls since Aug. i far exceeds the number who may have died or relocated during that period. States maybe improperly removing voters who have moved within the state, election experts said, or who are considered inactive because they have failed to vote in two consecutive federal elections. For example, major voter registration drives have been held this year in Colorado, which has also had a significant population increase since the last presidential election, but the state has recorded a net loss of nearly ioo,ooo voters from its rolls since 2004. Asked about the appearance of voter law violations, Rosemary E. Rodriguez, the chairwoman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, which oversees elections, said they could present "extremely serious problems." "The law is pretty clear about how states can use Social Security information to screen registrations and when states can purge their rolls," Ms. Rodriguez said. Nevada officials said the large number of Social Security checks had resulted from county clerks entering Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers in the wrong fields before records were sent to the state. They could not estimate how many records might have been affected by the problem, but they said it was corrected several weeks ago. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09voting.html?_r=1 &sq=purge&st=cse&... 10/16/2008