On @WNYC #USofAnxiety this week with @kai_wright, @ProfCAnderson mentions a poison pill that was added to the 1993 National Voter Registration Act — a pill that William Consovoy has tried to use in this election cycle. 1/ https://twitter.com/c_werth/status/1320802418897100801

That poison pill in the NVRA is Sect. 8, which requires states to maintain accurate, up-to-date voter registration rolls. This was Senate Republican's demand, made in a compromise with Dems and the Clinton admin, who wanted to expand access to voter registration. 2/

That was the point of the legislation. Voter turn out had dropped so low, the idea was that there should be more opportunities to register, including when you get your drivers license. That's why it's more popularly known as the Motor Voter Bill. 3/

Republicans said they were worried this would lead to bloated voter rolls, including dead people and people who'd moved from one state and/or voting district to another. Republican Senator Mark Hatfield from Oregon led the way on adding Sect. 8. 4/

Hatfield died in 2011, but I spoke with several former staffers. I'm told he'd been rattled by a peculiar case in OR in the '80s with a mystic religious leader who was busing in homeless ppl to boost electoral rolls. Netflix did a series about it 5/ https://www.netflix.com/title/80145240 

But use of Sect. 8 has changed dramatically since then. Republican officials and conservative groups have used it to purge tens of thousands of voters from the rolls in several states, including Ohio, where the Republican Secretary of State began using it to great effect. 6/

Ohio had reached a settlement in a lawsuit over enforcement of Sect. 8 brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative group with lawyers who'd left DOJ complaining the Obama admin was failing to enforce Sect. 8. https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/01-14-Ohio-Voter-Rolls-Settlement.pdf 7/

The question was whether Ohio could begin the process of removing a voter from the rolls because they didn't vote in one election, even though Sect. 8 of the NVRA says you can't use not voting as a basis for doing so. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-980 8/

The policy also had a disparate impact on low-income and minority voters. But in a 5/4 ideological split, the Roberts Court decided all of that was ok. The conservatives on the Court ruled Ohio was not in violation of the NVRA. 9/

Earlier this year, William Consovoy took his own shot with using Sect. 8. Working on behalf of a conservative group backed by Leonard Leo, the Koch bros and the DeVos family, he sent letters to secretaries of state in Michigan, Colorado and Florida. 10/

He compared census data with voter registration numbers to argue that several counties in these states were in violation of Sect. 8, and that his client would sue if the states didn't begin removing voters from the rolls. 11/

Given the history with Ohio Republicans, I filed a records request for all correspondence between Consovoy's firm and Florida's Republican secretary of state's office. What I got back showed several county-level election supervisors pushing back on Consovoy's accusation. 12/

In this response to Consovoy, you see Chris Chambless, the Republican elections supervisor for Clay County, FL raise questions about Consovoy's data. 13/

In this email, Lori Edwards, the Dem elections supervisor in Polk County, FL agrees — Consovoy's numbers don't add up. His methodology is flawed. You simply can't compare Census data with registrations to conclude there's a bunch of ppl on the rolls who shouldn't be there. 14/

Consovoy's attempt here with Sect. 8 doesn't appear to have gone anywhere. But once the pandemic hit, he's been very busy with voting litigation on behalf of the Trump campaign and the RNC in Wisconsin, California, Nevada, Montana, Rhode Island, New Jersey and elsewhere. 15/15