What purpose is served by preventing a state from keeping its voting records accurate?
In Florida, the secretary of state’s office has been requesting access to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement database for almost a full year in order to remove “illegal aliens and non-citizens off Florida voter rolls,” Chris Cate, a Florida Division of Elections spokesman, explained to the Reuters news agency.
The Department of Homeland Security that maintains the database has “been dragging its feet and has yet to comply with the request and now, the Department of Justice is stepping into the purging process,” Reuters reported.
According to Cate, access to the database is necessary “to vet a list of 180,000” voters whose citizenship needs to be verified for them to remain among Florida’s active voters. The list was established using records from Florida’s Division of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and current voter rolls.
At least 2,600 people have been confirmed to have been given voter rights despite the fact that they are in the country illegally. Of those, almost 1,600 live in Miami-Dade County, Reuters reported.