Voter checks ruled illegal

The way Washington state elections officials are checking new voter registrations is illegal, a federal judge said Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez issued a preliminary injunction against state and county elections officials, saying a new requirement that a prospective voter’s driver’s license or Social Security number must be matched before the registration is approved conflicts with federal law.

Attorneys for the secretary of state’s office had argued the new system conforms with federal voting laws, and the process of matching ID numbers was merely theoretical details.

But some registrations had already been denied, Martinez said. “The court does not consider a person’s right to vote a mere ‘detail’ to be so easily dismissed,” he said.

The new requirement is one of many changes to the state’s voter laws in the wake of the 2004 gubernatorial election that prompted two recounts and resulted in a contested 129-vote victory for Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire.

Washington state allows prospective voters to fill out and mail in registration forms, and many counties vote exclusively by mail, so voters need never appear at a polling station and produce ID before receiving a ballot. To verify a prospective voter’s identity, elections officials this year began requiring them to list the identification number from a driver’s license on the registration form. If they don’t have a driver’s license or a state identification card, they can use their Social Security number.

The number is then checked, by computers, for a match with the Department of Licensing or the Social Security databases.

But the Washington Association of Churches and voting rights groups, including the Brennan Center in New York City, argued that databases are replete with errors, so computers will sometimes be unable to match ID numbers, thus rejecting prospective voters who are legally entitled to cast ballots. They sued this spring to stop the matches and presented evidence that as many as 178 people had been improperly refused registration as of June 22.

Elections officials said anyone who was rejected could contest their status and cast a provisional ballot that would eventually be counted if the challenge was successful. They also argued that the state’s interest in preventing voter fraud should keep Martinez from barring the procedure, but he disagreed.

“Given Washington’s most recent governor’s election, where the winner was decided by just hundreds of votes, the court finds that the public interest weighs strongly in favor of letting every eligible resident of Washington register and cast a vote,” he said.

He ordered elections officials not to refuse registration to voters whose information can’t be matched.

Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton said she was waiting for instructions from state elections officials on how to handle registrations. A spokeswoman for Secretary of State Sam Reed said the ruling was so new that they weren’t prepared to comment on it.

New instructions on how to verify voter registrations will probably be developed this week, she said.