More on Sumners and the LWV

I’ve got some updates on the change in policy by Tax Assessor-to-be Don Sumners regarding voter registrations at naturalization ceremonies. First, Sumners has acknowledged the need to get pre-clearance from the Justice Department for any changes to voter registration procedures, so the change has been suspended pending resolution of that. Linda Cohn, the Voter Registration chair for the League of Women Voters, forwarded me an email chain between herself and the Secretary of State’s office that confirmed that as long as there is a Tax Office employee present to take immediate custody of the registration forms then no receipts are required. I can’t share that because I have not had the chance to ask permission from the SOS employee who corresponded with Cohn, but I do have a few other items:

Here’s Sumners’ letter to the LWV informing them of the change in policy.

Here’s the LWV response (page one, page two), which asserts that he has his facts wrong.

And here’s a brief conversation I had with Cohn recapping some of these items:

Download the MP3 file

The good news is that the LWV and Sumners are discussing possible resolutions to this that would allow them to continue their work; one possibility that she mentions is for an LWV representative (likely herself) to substitute for the Tax Office person for the purpose of taking immediate custody of the registrations.. That’s all well and good, and I hope her optimism about a mutually agreeable outcome is warranted. But I’ve got to agree with Greg that this is going to be par for the course, not just from Sumners but from all of the voter regression crowd, which is why the fight over voter ID and similar measures is still vitally important no matter what the partisan makeup is in the Lege or what those who think the right to vote isn’t all that big a deal say.

Related Posts:

• Point/counterpoint on online voter registration
• Deal reached to restore SOS funding for Tax Assessor
• SOS ups the ante against Sumners