Advancement Project Files Complaint Over Students Purged From Voter Rolls - UPDATED With Full Complaint

Just got some breaking news from Denise Lieberman, the Senior Attorney for a nonpartisan group of election protection advocates that was monitoring the elections. See my previous reporting on this issue here and here.

The press release:

(ST. LOUIS -- Nov. 11, 2010) – With a razor-thin margin of 176 votes separating the candidates in State Senate District 24, 198 provisional ballots remain to be counted and Advancement Project has discovered that many students may have been wrongfully turned away without being provided provisional ballots. If these allegations are substantiated and reveal an illegal purge that could affect the outcome of the election, voters or candidates could seek legal remedies including setting aside the election.

As election officials move to certify final election results next week, Advancement Project, a leading nonpartisan voter protection organization, is investigating apparent wrongful purges of student voters at Washington University’s campus, many of whom were inexplicably missing from the voter rolls on Election Day and were turned away without being offered a provisional ballot.

“We received reports that students who were duly registered and voted at the polling site on Washington University’s campus as recently as two years ago could not be found on the voter rolls at all, were turned away without being directed to their correct polling location and were expressly refused provisional ballots,” said Denise Lieberman, a senior attorney with Advancement Project who headed non-partisan Election Protection efforts in Missouri.

“Under the law, voters cannot be purged from the rolls unless they’ve died, been convicted of a crime, been adjudged incapacitated, notified the election board that they have moved outside the county, have asked to have their name removed from the voter registration roll, OR have not voted in two federal elections and have had mailing notices returned as undeliverable,” Lieberman said. “No student who registered and voted on campus in 2008 could be legally purged from the rolls unless they had affirmatively changed their registrations to a new jurisdiction or fell into one of the other categories.”

Under the law, voters who move within St. Louis County remain registered voters in the county. While they may be placed on the inactive list if mailings to an old address were returned, this does not prevent them from voting. Rather, the poll worker must direct them to the polling place serving their new address, where they should be allowed to cast a regular ballot upon completing a change of address form.

While some Washington University students who registered on campus in 2008 have moved since then, most have moved within St. Louis County, typically to Clayton or University City, and thus, should have been allowed to vote.

“These students should not have been dropped from the voter rolls,” Lieberman said. “At the least, if there were problems verifying their eligibility, they should have been given a provisional ballot. That way their votes could have been counted later when their eligibility was established.” But a poll supervisor for the campus polling site reports being told by election officials not to give students provisional ballots.

Moreover, where provisional ballots were used, too often, voters who moved were not directed to their new polling place and instead made to cast provisional ballots in the wrong location, which may not be counted because they were cast at the wrong polling place. Advancement Project accordingly has urged officials to count such ballots unless it was clear that the poll worker directed the voter to her correct location but the voter refused to go.

>Full complaint here:

St. Louis County Voter Purge Complaint -

County Elections Director Says "Unruly Students" Had To Be Escorted From Poling Location

I wrote earlier about how Washington University students were apparently purged from voter rolls and denied provisional ballots. This is part of long history of problems from the Board of Elections at Wash U polling locations, and takes on a special significance in this election because at first count Democrat Barbara Fraser was said to be trailing Republican John Lamping by only 176 votes out of 60,000 cast.

Today, Jo Mannies at the Beacon did some digging on this story, and the reaction from Democratic elections director Joe Donahue was truly remarkable:

Donahue did, however, take issue with reports that some Washington University students were improperly denied provisional ballots when they showed up at a polling place that serves the campus' South 40 dorms.

The account he had received from all the poll workers, said Donahue, "totally contradicted'' what the students said earlier to the news media.

Those students no longer were on the rolls, Donahue said, because they had moved off campus to University City or elsewhere. Even if they had cast a provisional ballot at the South 40 site, he said, the votes would not have counted because such students were at the wrong polling place -- and actually lived outside the 24th District.

He asserted that some students had gotten unruly, forcing the poll workers to call Washington University's security officers. No charges were filed.

I, for one, find it extremely unlikely that students were being allowed to vote yet somehow were being "unruly." Furthermore, given this report by KSDK, it seems very likely that the "unruly students" being referred to is actually Kate Gaertner, the Editor of Washington University newspaper Student Life. Here's what that report said:

"There are no circumstances that I can envision in which these voters should have been denied at the least an opportunity to cast a provisional ballot," Lieberman said. "Provisional ballots exist as an avenue of a last resort for people who eligibility can't be immediately established."

"And I saw four kids in a row get turned away," said junior Robert Pino.

Gaertner went to get the numbers - how many registered voters can vote here, how many did, and how many provisional ballots were filled out - all of which Lieberman said are a matter of public record.

The senior explained then that all the questions prompted poll workers' call to police.

"I was just on the phone with a lawyer," she said she told poll officials. "She said we have a right to this information, we can press charges if you don't give it to us."

In the end, she was escorted off campus and Robert Pino saw no resolution.

So Donahue's "unruly" student, as far as I can tell, was a journalist trying to get public information that she had a right to. Furthermore, Donahue's claims not only contradict the statements of students, but also the statements Polly Guth, a supervisor of the polling location. Here's what Guth had to say:

It is unclear how many voters were denied provisional ballots or turned away without the proper information, but Polly Guth, a supervisor of the polling place on the 40, said that voters who requested a provisional ballot earlier than 4:30 p.m. were denied. Officials indicated that only a small handful of students were turned away at the polls.

“The person this morning who we talked to [on the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners] said no [to giving out provisional ballots] and did not give us a follow-up number,” Guth said.

And later:

Guth said that she was just following orders and understands why some students were upset.

“I know how frustrating it is, and I do apologize, but what they [the St. Louis election board] tell you, you have to do it,” Guth said. “It’s scary when you don’t.”

This reaction from the Board of Elections, which as I mentioned has a history of causing problems for students and for minority districts, strikes me as extremely implausible. It also raises a number of questions:

Who told Polly Guth not to give out provisional ballots? Why did they do so?

Why weren't the poll workers provided with a follow-up number if they had questions?

Why were provisional ballots not provided until 4:30?

Why were students' names purged from voter rolls, which in my understanding violates federal law?

Why didn't poll workers direct students who had moved to their correct polling locations?

Why didn't poll workers provide public information when asked?

Why does the board of elections routinely not answer their phones during elections?

This case is extremely fishy. I'm glad Mannies is on the beat, and I hope the journalists at Student Life can get to the bottom of this issue, especially considering that a state senate seat might hang in the balance.

Did Voter Suppression Steal A Democratic State Senate Seat?

Barbara Fraser, a Democrat running to replace Joan Bray in Missouri's 24th State Senate district, lost to Republican John Lamping by only 172 votes out of 60,000 cast. However, the 24th district includes the Washington University dorms and surrounding area, and there were serious problems reported at those sites. Students who had voted two years ago had been taken off the voting rolls, and these students were not provided with provisional ballots as they should have been. Student Life reports:

Some students who voted on the South 40 in 2008 did not show up as registered voters on Tuesday, even if they had not notified the state of a change of address.

The voting rolls should have listed them as “inactive voters” on Tuesday.

Inactive voters are those who have not voted recently and may have a change of address.

Inactive status is partially determined by notification cards that the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners sends out over the summer to confirm that registered voters kept their addresses.

Many students’ cards were returned to the Board undelivered because they moved off campus or had a change of address.

When these cards come back to the Board of Election Commissioners, the voters should have been put onto an inactive voter list.

The article continues:

This did not happen for some students who voted on the South 40 in 2008 and did not re-register to a new address. Instead, they were taken off the voting lists entirely.

“The students say they voted two years ago at Wash. U., so they should be registered. The judge says that over the summer Wash. U. returned a bunch of update cards that the Board of Elections had given out, and they did a dump of all the names,” said Loretta Haggard, a volunteer with the Democratic Voter Protection Effort who was outside Ursa’s on election day. “I think that they should have been put on an inactive list.”

Senior Liz Nylund was in line at the South 40 polling place because she voted there in 2008. She had moved since then, but was hoping that the people working there would help her.

The girl in front of her was in the same situation and had voted on the South 40 as recently as 2009.

“[The supervisors at the South 40 polling place] were trying to find her in the system and they couldn’t find her,” Nylund said of the other girl in line. “They told her she couldn’t vote today.”

And in fact the poll workers were told by the Board of Elections not to give out provisional ballots, which should have allowed the students to vote:

The poll workers were told by someone at the Board of Election Commissioners Tuesday morning not to give out any provisional ballots, according to Polly Guth, a supervisor at the South 40 polling place.

These orders were reversed when the poll workers asked again at around 4:30 p.m.

According to Donahue, the Board of Election Commissioners is investigating why no provisional ballots were given out earlier in the day.

“We are doing an investigation of that comment here at our office,” Donahue said.

Phone calls made to the board of election were not answered. When the editor of the StudLife Kate Gaertner went to the polling place to investigate and ask questions, the police were called and she was escorted away:

She explained that she got a call at around 5:10 p.m. Tuesday that students were being turned away, they weren't allowed to cast a vote, and weren't being offered the option to fill out a provisional ballot. She called a Washington University adjunct professor and voters' rights attorney, Denise Lieberman.

"There are no circumstances that I can envision in which these voters should have been denied at the least an opportunity to cast a provisional ballot," Lieberman said. "Provisional ballots exist as an avenue of a last resort for people who eligibility can't be immediately established."

"And I saw four kids in a row get turned away," said junior Robert Pino.

Gaertner went to get the numbers - how many registered voters can vote here, how many did, and how many provisional ballots were filled out - all of which Lieberman said are a matter of public record.

The senior explained then that all the questions prompted poll workers' call to police.

"I was just on the phone with a lawyer," she said she told poll officials. "She said we have a right to this information, we can press charges if you don't give it to us."

In the end, she was escorted off campus and Robert Pino saw no resolution.

The Washington University dorm area is also in Missouri's Third Congressional District, where Congressman Russ Carnahan won a close race against Ed Martin. Students at Wash U overwhelmingly vote Democratic: a 2008 poll showed that students preferred Obama to McCain 78%-15%, with nearly 90% voting for Obama in 2008. With the turned away voters, only about 400 out of the 1800 registered voters in the Wash U precinct voted on Tuesday.

This is not the first time students at Washington University have been disenfranchised. In 2002, poll workers also refused to give students provisional ballots. In 2004, students were inexplicably only allowed to use 3 out of 13 available voting machines, which led to 2 hour waits. In 2006, students who were registered to vote were also left off voter rolls. In 2006, when some students went to the St. Louis County Board of Election Commissioners office, where they could cast a regular ballot, Joseph Goeke, the current Republican Director of the St. Louis County Board of elections, originally told them to go back to their polling location then said they'd have to stand outside because they were "rowdy."

The St. Louis County Board of Elections is also no stranger to sketchy events off-campus. In 2008, there were ridiculously long lines and voting problems in areas with high African-American populations. Goeke ignored election protection activists who told him that the county was not providing enough ballots and claimed to have not known about 6 hour waits in one of his polling locations until he spoke with a Post-Dispatch reporter at 4 PM. In 2006, the County Board of Elections combined four precincts into one location in Democratic University City, resulting in four hour waits.

With a razor thin margin of 172 votes in the original voting tallies (and with provisional ballots still needing to be counted), this incident needs to be seriously investigated.

An open Letter to Kurt Becker, VP of IAFF Local 2665

Reposted with permission from John Moyle:

Dear Mr. Becker,

I returned home after a long day of work at my IBEW local 1 member job to find your letter at my door. IAFF Local 2665, a AFL-CIO member organization, is supporting the Republican, John Lamping over the Democrat, Barbara Fraser in the election for the Missouri 24th Senate District.

Would you care to explain why your labor organization would choose to support the party that works against labor at every turn? We had a good bill that passed the U.S. House of Reps recently and would have ended the tax benefits for corporations to shut down plants and move jobs overseas. So what happened to it? Republicans filibustered it in the Senate preventing a vote (as they have done with 420 other pieces of legislation last I checked).

Republicans have supported issue after issue that benefited corporations over labor and opposed nearly every effort labor has made to protect our members for as long as I can remember. We have thousands out of work in organized labor due to the recent "great recession" that was caused by deregulation of the financial industries over several decades. Something the Republican party always supports regardless of potential risk. On top of everything else, the average Republican I talk to supports Prop A. If Prop A and a following city election are both as successful as they hope in eliminating city Income taxes, how many professional fire fighters would be out of work after cities like St. Louis lose approximately 1/3rd or more of there budgets?

I know nothing about John Lamping other than what I can read on his website. But what I found there was this:

"Following graduation John went to work in Manhattan as a Currency Trader. He eventually returned to school to pursue an MBA in Finance at New York University. He graduated with distinction from New York University and went to work as a Bond Trader in Manhattan.
Since 1998, John has worked for a major St. Louis-based securities brokerage firm, and currently serves as a personal financial advisor and brokerage manager for the firm."

You're kidding right Mr. Becker? You're supporting someone whose career is in the very sector that brought us the financial disaster that has cost us millions of organized labor jobs? You know, Wall Street, the people that brought us plant closures and outsourcing jobs to other countries all in the name of higher quarterly profits (American citizen lives and futures be damned).

Your letter states:

"Born and raised in St. Louis, John has dedicated much of his life to making our community a better place. He has served on the boards of numerous philanthropic organizations in the area...."

To start with, Mr. Lamping's website makes it sound like he spent much of his adult life out of state. But what really makes me curious is your complete lack of examples of these "philanthropic organizations" you mention. A quick review of his website shows mostly religious organizations. While there is nothing wrong with religious service, I don't see how those experiences will translate well to public service. Then there is the Regional Business Council. That's great, but what has he done for jobs, for living wages, for worker’s rights, for pension protection from corporate theft, etc? I can't seem to find any memberships that address those issues, you know, the kind of issues organizations in the AFL-CIO tend to focus on.

Mr. Becker, I'm not saying Barbara Fraser is perfect, but all things being equal, I'll back a Democrat and former Teacher over a Republican and former Wall Street Raider any day. I'd love to hear what you feel is so wrong with Barbara Fraser that your organization would choose to support this John Lamping over her.

Thank you for your time,

John Moyle

The good news is that we can all help correct this mistake by getting involved in Barbara Fraser's campaign!

Endorsements for August 3rd

The August 3rd primaries are coming up in Missouri, so I thought I'd share my 2 cents on a few of the upcoming races. I don't claim to be an expert on the intricacies of all of the local races, and as you'll see I don't have a strong opinion on many of the contests, but I thought it might be helpful to share at least one perspective from a progressive point of view on the elections. The November general elections are often the traditional Democrat v. Republican matchup, so primaries can be a great opportunity is a place like the St. Louis area to really look for candidates that reflect the values you care about.

So with no further ado...

The Most Important Point: VOTE NO ON PROP C! Proposition C is a right wing attempt to roll back the health care reforms passed after a long and brutal struggle earlier in the year. As has been pointed out by those on the left and the right, Proposition C will not be legally binding. However, it's an attempt by the Right to create the impression that people are opposed to the reforms (many of which have not even taken effect yet). In fact, with support of the new health care laws growing, this vote can be seen largely as an attempt by the Right to shift momentum back in their favor. The Right in Missouri has been organizing around this issue for a while, with no comparable effort on the Left, so Prop C is likely to win. However, since it's really about sending a message, and since the Right has raised the goalposts pretty high (for example, right-wing blogger Jim Durbin at 24thstate, who's been working on this campaign for a while, said they were aiming at getting 75% of the vote), we can send a strong message by generating a significant No on Prop C vote. Basically every vote matters for the national narrative, and everyone who votes against Prop C and for moving forward rather than backwards on healthcare reform can help shape the message for the November elections.

Missouri House Races: Pastor James Morris is a strong progressive who is very connected with the activist community. I strongly support his bid for re-election.

There are a couple of Democratic candidates who I would say are not part of the establishment and have real potential to improve the Missouri House of Representatives. Doug Clemens in MO district 77 might not call himself "progressive" on his website, but I'd say he stands for the core values of the Democratic Party: he's labor-friendly, he's environment-friendly, and he understands the need to combine the two values by helping to create green jobs. Many of the people whose opinions I value most are supporting Clemens' campaign. You can find out how to help Clemens campaign by clicking here. Byron DeLear also supports the creation of green jobs, and he brings an expert perspective as someone who has been working in the clean-energy industry and who helped pass the Property Assessed Clean Energy bill through the Missouri House. It would be fascinating to see what effect a genuine green jobs expert could have in the Missouri legislature. Find out how to help Byron here.

Missouri Senate: I don't have definitive opinions on any of these races, but I do have a few thoughts. Probably any of the four candidates in the Democratic Primary for the 14th district would be reliable progressive votes. I used to really like Maria Chapelle-Nadal, but have been very disappointed in some of her recent antics, from her obnoxious comments on Twitter, to her recent ridiculous legal threats (which she refuses to support with any evidence) against my friend Clark at Show Me Progress, to a couple other things that I won't bother to mention. If she was elected, she hopefully would vote the right way and maybe could even because a strong progressive voice in the Senate, but some of her behavior strikes me as pretty serious warning signs. Among the other candidates (Don Calloway, Joe Adams, Ted Hoskins), I don't have strong views. Don Calloway wrote a blog post several years ago that I thought very nicely articulated a progressive vision for St. Louis, and I trust the judgment of a couple of intelligent young progressives who have been working hard for his campaign, but I realize this probably isn't enough to base a "full endorsement" on.

Similarly, in the 24th District Senate Democratic Primary, I don't have a conclusive opinion. This case is a little different, however, because whomever wins will have a competitive Republican challenger in November. The race is for the seat of Senator Joan Bray, one of the most important progressive voices in Jefferson City, so I'm inclined to support Bray's strong endorsement of Barbara Fraser. She seems to me to have a stronger chance of victory in the general election.

One last thing: if you are a conservative who by some odd twist of fate stumbled across this website, surely you would support a genuine conservative like Chuck Purgason in the Republican Senate primary rather than a D.C. insider Corporocrat like Roy Blunt, right? It seems clear to me that anyone who, like the St. Louis Tea Party, supports Blunt over Purgason in the primary, is standing not for conservative values but for the exact Government-playing-favorites-based-on-who-donated-the-most ideology that free market enthusiasts claim to oppose. Just sayin.

So, those are my thoughts. Feel free to share yours in the comments.

Update: for information about voting rights and election day, click here.