ACLU becomes active in voting rights case

The Detroit Free Press reports that the ACLU and the United States Student Association have filed a lawsuit against Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land to stop two voter purging programs.  The advocacy groups claim that hundreds of thousands of voters could be disenfranchised before the November election.

The first program cancels the registration of voters who receive driver's licenses in other states and the second nullifies the registrations of new voters when their voter ID cards are returned as undeliverable.  The lawsuit holds that these programs are not in compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

The ACLU of Michigan links the case to the growing importance of Michigan and its voters in the presidential election.  They hold that the voter purging programs will disproportionately affect students and low-income families that tend to be transient.  This lawsuit is part of the ACLU Voting Rights Project.

If these programs could remove 210,000 individuals from the voting rolls, as the lawsuit claims, then they could certainly have a large impact of the election, especially if those affected are students and low-income families.  High voter turnout generally favors Democrats, but we can only speculate if Republican Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land has such villainous intentions as to limit Democratic turnout.  We will have to watch and see if the case is even resolved by the election.