RYAN HUTCHINS, THE STAR-LEDGER
TRENTON — Lawyers for the NAACP and a coalition of other civil rights groups claim New Jersey has been violating the National Voting Rights Act and say they will sue if changes are not made.
The 1993 act, also known as the “motor voter” law, requires social service agencies across the country to give clients the chance to register to vote when filling out paperwork for services.
In a letter to Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, the top election official in the state, the groups say the state Department of Human Services is failing to consistently provide voter registration services to those seeking public assistance.
“Public assistance agencies are a vital component of the voter registration system because they connect with Americans, including low-income individuals and persons with disabilities, who are less likely to register through other means,” Sarah Brannon, director of the public agency registration program at Project Vote, one of the groups that sent the letter, said in a statement.
The letter — from the NAACP’s New Jersey state conference as well as attorneys from Rutgers Constitutional Law Clinic, Project Vote, Demos and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law — says social services agencies have bad policies and are not consistently providing registration forms when required to do so.
Since 1995, the letter says, there has been a decline in the number of voters registered at public assistance agencies in New Jersey, even as the number of people seeking assistance increased.
The groups said they poured over data and state policies, visited county welfare agencies and interviewed workers and clients. Of the 64 clients they spoke to, 88 percent said they did not receive a voters registration application, the letter claims.
Nicole Brossoie, a spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services, defended New Jersey’s compliance with the law. Under Gov. Chris Christie, she said, the state “has been one of the country’s leaders implementing reforms to make voter registration easier.”
“In 2010, after discussions with these groups, the department automated this process,” she said in an e-mail. “Now, when a… client applies for a program, changes address or goes through recertification/redetermination, there are a series of screens that prompt the worker to ask the person if they are registered to vote and if not, whether they want to register.”
She said the Rutgers Constitutional Law Clinic and Project Vote told the state it was “one of the first in the country to automate the voter registration process through social service applications.”
But Frank Askin, who works at the Constitutional Law Clinic said, it’s not enough. READ MORE