Social Security And Voter Registration Story Gets More Complicated

I had earlier commented that Michael Astrue's letter to state election officials about possible excessive use of Social Security's databases to confirm new voter registrations seemed to be a possible sign of voter suppression. It appears that voter suppression is going on, probably unintentional, but those letters were not part of it, but an indirect result of it. A New York Times article shows that the letters from Social Security were brought about by inquiries to Social Security from the New York Times, concerning state efforts to purge voting rolls. The Times article is confusing, but it is clear that we should all hope that this election is not close because there have been some dramatic and probably illegal purges of voting rolls. There may be some would-be voters getting a nasty surprise on election day.