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Missouri, ACORN settle voter lawsuit

By DAVID TWIDDY - Associated Press Writer
Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri Department of Social Services settled a lawsuit Thursday that accused it of violating a federal law requiring it to help residents who receive public assistance register to vote.

As part of the settlement, the department will provide monthly reports on its efforts to comply with the law with attorneys for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, and will pay ACORN $450,000 in legal costs. The group filed the lawsuit in 2008, claiming the department was violating the National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as the "motor-voter" law, and leaving thousands of low-income or disabled Missourians unable to vote.

A federal judge in July filed a preliminary injunction against the department, ordering it to comply with the law and creating a system for monitoring in-person visits and voter registration offers at its offices. U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey also required the department to identify a person in each local office and its main office to gather data about compliance with the federal law.

Those provisions are included in the settlement.

ACORN officials welcomed the agreement and said more than 100,000 people have registered to vote at public assistance offices since Laughrey's ruling last year.

"ACORN is proud to have been part of this remarkable success in Missouri, which provides a timely reminder that government, not third-party drives, are the most effective way to bring millions of low-income Americans into the electorate," said Jeff Ordower, the group's head organizer in Missouri.

Scott Rowson, a spokesman for the Department of Social Services, said most of the provisions in the settlement have been implemented and the department will begin training employees on complying with the law within the next 60 days.

"We've already made significant gains in the voter registration efforts," Rowson said. "We look forward to continuing to help Missouri citizens have a vote in government."

The National Voter Registration Act was enacted in 1993 and requires state public assistance agencies, which administer such programs as Food Stamps and Medicaid, to provide its clients with the chance to register to vote. The agencies are also required to help the clients complete the registrations.

ACORN's evidence included documents showing that the number of voter registration applications received from the Department of Social Services and the Department of Health and Senior Services offices declined from 143,134 in 1995-1996 to 15,568 in 2005-2006. But the average monthly number of households receiving Food Stamps through applications at the Department of Social Services increased from 238,699 households in fiscal year 1995 to 300,498 households in fiscal year 2006.

State documents also confirmed that more than 1 million Food Stamps applicants could not have been offered voter registration from 2003 to 2008 because the Department of Social Services did not order enough forms.

Documents cited also included a 2004 internal survey by the agency that found 11 of 21 counties routinely provided the service. Also, e-mails from one county department office showed that completed voter registration applications had piled up for a year without being processed.

Voting rights advocates said they hoped the case would lead to improved national compliance with the law.

"Other states across the country that have ignored the voting rights of low-income citizens for far too long should take note of Missouri's example and bring their practices into compliance with the law," said Brenda Wright, director of the Democracy Program with nonpartisan group Demos and one of ACORN's attorneys in the case.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press

http://www.bnd.com/336/story/821513.html


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ACORN wins voter lawsuit

Submitted by Steve Kraske on June 25, 2009 - 1:46pm

The Missouri Department of Social Services has settled a lawsuit accusing it of violating a federal law requiring it to help its clients register to vote.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, filed the lawsuit in April 2008. A federal judge in Kansas City in July issued a preliminary injunction ordering the social services agency to comply with the National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as the “motor-voter” law.

The settlement was filed Thursday.

Under the agreement, the department must track the number of people visiting its county offices monthly and how many register to vote. It also must designate local and state voter registration coordinators.Plaintiffs in the case released this statement:

"Over 100,000 low-income Missouri citizens already have registered to vote at public assistance offices in the few short months since the Court ordered Missouri DSS to follow the law. Today's settlement confirms that DSS now will be a partner in ensuring the voting rights of all Missouri citizens, fulfilling a key goal of the NVRA," said Brenda Wright, director of the Democracy Program at Demos and counsel for plaintiffs.

"Other states across the country that have ignored the voting rights of low-income citizens for far too long should take note of Missouri's example and bring their practices into compliance with the law."

"This case demonstrates the potential difference that the NVRA can make in enfranchising our poorest citizens," stated Jon Greenbaum, legal director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and co-counsel for plaintiffs.

"If every state registered its public assistance clients at the rate Missouri has since last year's court order, several million citizens would be registered through public assistance agencies every year instead of the few hundred thousand that are now being registered. We hope that DSS will relate its experiences to its counterparts in the other states."

The court ruling that led to today's settlement cited "substantial evidence" of voting rights violations, including:

• State documents confirming that over one million Food Stamps applicants could not have been offered voter registration from 2003-2008 because DSS did not order enough of the forms it is required to give each client;

• Field surveys by plaintiffs of agency offices showing that offices were not offering voter registration;

• E-mails from a DSS employee acknowledging that half the counties in a 21-county survey were not routinely providing voter registration to DSS clients;

• E-mails from one county DSS office showing that voter registration applications completed by clients had been permitted to pile up for an entire year without being turned in to the local election authority for processing.

To view the settlement agreement, and for more information on the NVRA and voting rights, visit http://www.demos.org ; http://www.projectvote.org ; or http://www.lawyerscommittee.org .

© Copyright 2009 The Kansas City Star

http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/19049


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Settlement in Missouri Lawsuit a Victory for Low-Income Voters

By: Erin Ferns
25-06-09

In a major victory for voting rights, low-income voters in the state of Missouri will finally have better access to voter registration opportunities, thanks to a lawsuit settlement announced today by Project Vote, Demos, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

For years Missouri was one of many states neglecting their obligations under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) to offer voter registration services through agencies providing public assistance and services to persons with disabilities. After a court order [ http://projectvote.org/administrator/images/publications/NVRA/Scott_PI_Order.pdf ] in the suit required the state to comply with the NVRA in July, Missouri public assistance agencies went from collecting fewer than 8,000 applications a year to collecting over 100,000 applications in just eight months. Today’s settlement of the case confirms Missouri’s renewed commitment to continuing this remarkable success, and sends a message to other states that enfranchising its low-income citizens is as simple as following federal law.

This victory came about through the work of the Public Agency Voter Registration Project [ http://projectvote.org/public-agency-registration-.html ], a joint nationwide effort to assess and address areas of noncompliance. “With growing agreement on the need to improve voter registration in the United States, it is important to note that those least likely to be registered are low- to moderate-income Americans,” said Nicole Kovite, director of the Project for Project Vote, in a statement [ http://projectvote.org/newsreleases/434-missouri-department-of-social-services-agrees-to-settlement-ensuring-voter-registration-opportunities-for-low-income-voters.html ] released today. (Forty percent of adult Americans who earn less than $25,000 are unregistered, compared to only 20 percent of citizens earning more than $100,000.) “This case illustrates how state governments can and should take the lead in reducing this disparity by fully implementing the public agency requirements of the NVRA.”

In 2007 Project Vote assessed Missouri’s track record of noncompliance and documented widespread violations of the NVRA [ http://projectvote.org/images/publications/NVRA/Missouri_NVRA_report_2007-web.pdf ]. In April 2008, after unsuccessfully attempting to work with the state to resolve the issues, a lawsuit [ http://projectvote.org/litigation/282.html ] was filed against the Missouri Department of Social Services (DSS) on behalf of ACORN and St. Louis resident Dionne O’Neal. The plaintiffs were represented by lawyers from Project Vote, Demos, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, as well as by local counsel Arthur Benson of Arthur Benson & Associates.

Evidence of the state’s neglect of the federal law were cited in the July court ruling, including the state’s own documents confirming that more than one million Food Stamps applicants could not have been offered voter registration between 2003 and 2008 because the DSS did not order enough forms required for its clients. Further, a field study conducted by Project Vote and ACORN found that half of all 21 counties surveyed did not routinely provide voter registration forms, and some flat out did not provide voter registration at all. In one particularly outstanding case, a county DSS allowed applications to pile up for an entire year without being turned in to be processed by the local election authority.

In the settlement agreement Missouri agrees to require “each DSS office to collect and report detailed monthly data on the numbers of persons visiting DSS offices, their responses to voter registration inquiries, the numbers of voter registrations completed and submitted to local election authorities, and other key information, and to provide this data monthly to plaintiffs’ counsel,” according to the press release [ http://projectvote.org/newsreleases/434-missouri-department-of-social-services-agrees-to-settlement-ensuring-voter-registration-opportunities-for-low-income-voters.html ] today. The agreement also requires the designation of NVRA coordinators at both the state and local levels as well as the implementation of mandatory trainings of employees in voter registration duties. The DSS is also responsible for providing voter registration applications with regular mailings to clients and in connection with transactions by phone or internet.

The success in Missouri serves as a “timely reminder that governments, not third-party drives, are the most effective way to bring millions of low-income Americans into the electorate," as Jeff Ordower, Missouri ACORN Head Organizer, said in today’s statement. The potential for this program nationwide is tremendous. Project Vote conservatively estimates that public assistance agencies nationwide could be collecting over 200,000 applications a month, or between two and three million per year.

Clearly, other states across the country that have ignored their responsibilities under the NVRA should take note of Missouri’s example and bring their practices into compliance with this vital and effective law.

Copyright 2009 Project Vote (emphasis in original)

http://www.projectvoteblog.org/265/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=3344&tx_ttnews[backPid]=263&cHash=44ff27a93a
[also at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/25/746911/-Settlement-in-Missouri-Lawsuit-a-Victory-for-Low-Income-Voters ]


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also:

Missouri agrees to pay $450,000 to ACORN to help settle voter registration suit
Jun. 25, 2009
http://www.kansascity.com/115/story/1282676.html

Mo. agency will reform itself to help clients vote
06/25/2009
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/missouristatenews/story/2789C4FE340C1939862575E000605C73?OpenDocument