June 12, 2012
ASSOCIATED PRESS
GALVESTON (AP) — Voter advocates told a federal judge June 11 a Texas law stands in the way of large-scale voter registration efforts by exposing community volunteers to fraud allegations over minor lapses or errors while making it difficult to spot real voter fraud.
The testimony came in a federal court hearing in Galveston as the nonprofit group Project Vote sought a temporary injunction to block portions of the law regulating how voter registration applications are handled, the Galveston County Daily News reported.
The hearing continued June 12.
The group sued Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade and Galveston County Voter Registrar Cheryl Johnson in February. Andrade and Johnson deny the allegations.
Project Vote, a national nonpartisan, nonprofit group with the stated mission of working to “educate and mobilize low-income, minority, youth and other marginalized and underrepresented voters,” would not try to register voters in Texas under present state law, Executive Director Michael Slater said.
Slater testified his group wouldn’t run voter-registration drives because the law makes volunteer registrars vulnerable to fraud allegations if they make minor lapses or errors. Provisions violate the National Voter Registration Act and the U.S. Constitution and make efficient large-scale registration drives impossible while doing nothing to prevent real fraud, Slater testified.
For example, a provision prohibits groups such as Project Vote from keeping photocopies of registration applications, making it harder to spot fraudulent applications and prosecute offenders, he said. That also prevents monitoring of whether government officials are manipulating voters rolls, he said.
Under cross-examination, Slater acknowledged his group helped to register between 20,000 and 30,000 Harris County voters in about six months. However, in response to Assistant Texas Attorney General Kathlyn Wilson, he said Harris County officials agreed to not strictly enforce some of the state law’s provisions.
Estelle Holmes, of Hitchcock, testified she had worked as a volunteer deputy registrar since the 1980s but recently has grown worried over becoming vulnerable to prosecution for minor lapses or errors made by voter applicants. READ MORE.