Tell a friend

LA DEMS ON DARDENNE PURGE SYSTEM: VOTERS BEWARE!

Monday, June 18, 2007

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Julie Vezinot

June 18, 2007 225-336-4155

VOTERS BEWARE!

Citizens Must Read the Fine Print or Wrongly Lose Their Right to Vote

BATON ROUGE - Jay Dardenne’s latest attempt to clear the Louisiana voter rolls of inactive voters is fatally flawed and based on inaccurate and incomplete information, according to Louisiana Democratic Party Chairman Chris Whittington.

A registered voter in Rapides Parish received one of Dardenne’s letters this past weekend claiming he will be purged from the rolls due to his “current registration in Florida.” The voter (whose name is not published to protect his privacy) proclaimed that he is not now nor has ever neither lived nor registered to vote in Florida. Current Louisiana Voter registration information shows that the voter in question is in fact registered in Rapides Parish and has consistently voted for the past five years.

Upon contact with the State of Florida Secretary of State’s office by the Louisiana Democratic Party, information obtained found that a voter with the same date of birth and first and last names is registered in that state. Differing factors were the two voters’ middle names and party affiliations – the Louisiana voter is registered as “O”; an Independent and the Florida voter is a registered Democrat. Does Dardenne’s system also check for matches in other areas, such as sex, race or Social Security Numbers?

“Dardenne is basing his voter roll purge solely on matches of birth dates and names, which in itself is clearly not enough information to accurately identify these voters. It appears Dardenne’s research is severely flawed and is cause to wonder how many of the 86,000+ voters purged last Fall have similar inconsistencies in their information and never should have been removed from the rolls,” Whittington said.

“Why is Dardenne so eager to purge the rolls of thousands of voters who may have every right to remain there and continue to cast their vote? Why is he relying on a system to find inactive voters which is clearly unreliable and flawed? I urge every voter, regardless of party, to fight for their Constitutional right to vote and don’t let and eager politician making a name for himself yank it away from you,” Whittington said.

If anyone has received one of these letters and has questions or feels the information in the letter’s claim is inaccurate, please contact the Louisiana Democratic Party at 225-336-4155.

# # #