Posted by The city’s Board of Elections is violating the law by not using a statewide voter database to help get rid of duplicate registrations, state election officials ruled.
The state Board of Elections, in a ruling this summer, gave the city agency until next Wednesday to start using the database and reduce as many duplicate and outdated registrations as possible before September’s primary.
“It is a state and federal requirement that we follow these procedures,” said Robert Brehm, a spokesman for the state Board of Elections. “We want them to start.”
Under the federal Help America Vote Act, known as HAVA, the state must operate a statewide voter database. Local boards are required to use it to update their rolls and remove duplications that can occur when a person moves and files a new registration, Brehm said.
The city board never accessed the database, which was activated last year, Brehm said.
Marcus Cederqvist, executive director of the city Board of Elections, said the city needs assurances that the database contains valid information.
He said state law requires all new voter registrations to be approved by both Republican and Democratic election commissioners.
“We have no assurance from the state or anyone else that that is being done in a bipartisan manner anywhere else in the state,” Cederqvist said.
The city board this week filed a complaint with the state charging that the database violated state law.
Brehm said there’s no reason to believe that other boards of elections were acting improperly.
The state’s ruling stemmed from an April complaint by Robert McFeeley, a Staten Island Republican and information services manager in the borough president’s office. He charged that the city’s voter registration rolls were hopelessly outdated
McFeeley said he often used city voter rolls to send out constituent service mailings, and that as many as 10% would be returned because of invalid addresses.
“My sister moved to Pennsylvania 10 years ago and she is still on the rolls,” McFeeley said.
Source: NY Daily News
