The one thing agreed upon by both sides in the 2000 election in Florida was that it finally dispelled the myth that elections in the United States may be assumed to be clean, accurate and accountable. Accordingly, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) to clarify and standardize federal elections. Among other things, HAVA required each state to create a centralized voter registration database, and to verify incoming voter registrations before adding them to that database. Washington State complied, putting new procedures in place on January 1, 2006.

The state was immediately sued by a group of eight political activist organizations claiming the new law would disenfranchise voters.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys are from the Brennan Center for Justice, a legal advocacy group based at the New York University School of Law. Well-funded by a combination of partisan liberal philanthropists and taxpayer funds, and liberal to its very core, the Brennan Center enjoys the tax-deductible status of a nonpartisan nonprofit while pursuing a litigation agenda that is no different from that of a partisan group. Despite lofty claims of “protecting the right to vote,” the Center’s foray into Washington’s election law appears calculated to make it as easy as possible for partisan groups to conduct fraud-prone voter registration drives.

Although there are eight plaintiff organizations in the case, the presence of at least one of them underscores this conclusion. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has made a name for itself nationally by being implicated in massive voter registration fraud in at least ten states over the past three years. Under the pretense of empowering workers, ACORN engages in extensive voter registration drives, claiming to have registered over one million voters since 2003. How many of these “voters” actually exist is questionable, though, as the combined rate of error and fraud for some of their operations has run as high as 62%. Their interest in overturning a law which would lamp down on voter registration fraud is disturbingly obvious.

Although seemingly an odd match, the Brennan Center and ACORN have repeatedly joined forces in a series of lawsuits over the past several years to challenge numerous different aspects of election security, and the attack on Washington State’s new election security law is merely one of the latest. Washington was chosen not out of any real interest in the state itself, but rather as the product of careful legal strategy and venue shopping in order to disable a critical link in HAVA’s election security provisions. If successful, the precedent will ripple through many states, removing any meaningful barriers to vote fraud in each.

Unsupported by the law, the Brennan Center resorts to legal sleight of hand to confuse definitions and issues. In one example, they argue that HAVA, which explicitly prohibits states from processing voter registrations which lack critical information, should actually be interpreted as requiring states to process all registrations, regardless of any missing or illegible information. Their argument also employs offensive assumptions about the intelligence of Washington’s elections officials and voters, including assertions that certain racial and ethnic minorities don’t understand how to write their names.

This lawsuit is not about the correct interpretation of the law; it is about an agenda. Judging from other lawsuits filed by the Brennan Center, along with Brennan’s published policy recommendations, some of that agenda is clear:

• Voter registrations should simply be processed, not questioned, even if there is reason to question their validity.
• Registration at the polling place immediately before voting should be allowed, even though this removes all checks against fraud.
• Although registration of invalid voters should be impossible to prevent, their removal from the voter rolls should likewise be exceedingly difficult to achieve.
• Voters should not have to vote in the correct precinct.
• Voters should not have to show ID at the polls.
• Felons should never lose the right to vote, even while on death row.

In light of the danger inherent in reducing election security, the Olympia, Washington-based Evergreen
Freedom Foundation undertook a study of the Brennan Center, ACORN, and the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Washington. As detailed in the this report, the conclusions that can be drawn are frightening. At a time when Washington is struggling to regain election integrity after a disastrous governor’s race in 2004, Brennan’s attempt to cripple voter registration security can only lead to more chaos and less voter confidence. Our courts should flatly reject such attempts, and our legislature
should act to improve election security, especially if the Brennan Center prevails in its lawsuit.