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RITE Warns New York and New Mexico of Federal Voter Registration Law Violations

WASHINGTON, DC – Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (“RITE”) a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting election integrity, has notified officials in New York and New Mexico that key aspects of their voter registration practices violate the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and undermine federally required identity verification protocols for new registrants.
 
RITE has demanded that the New York State Board of Elections remedy two HAVA violations. First, New York regulations permit county officials to register individuals who fail to provide their driver’s license number or last four digits of their social security number (“SSN last four”) on their registration forms. HAVA explicitly prohibits states from accepting a registration without one of the numbers, except for the few who possess neither. If practice matches process on paper, which it appears to, this is a serious HAVA violation that New York must remedy immediately.
 
Second, New York’s statewide registration form misstates federal requirements by presenting the driver’s license number and the SSN last four as interchangeable options. Under HAVA, an applicant must provide a driver’s license number if they have one; the SSN last four is permissible only when they do not. RITE is demanding that New York immediately correct the form and instruct county officials accordingly.
 
RITE has also written to New Mexico raising the same concerns about its noncompliant voter registration form, and to request clarification on several other HAVA-related practices, including whether the state claims any of the law’s limited exemptions available to jurisdictions that require applicants to provide their full social security number at registration. New Mexico stopped doing so in 2019. These exemptions include being able to opt-out of certain identify verification processes.
 
HAVA’s identity verification provisions play a critical role in maintaining the accuracy of statewide voter lists. The law requires states to collect the appropriate identifying numbers from every applicant, confirm those identifiers against government databases, and follow specific procedures when doing so. These requirements enable states to verify the identity and eligibility of applicants, including citizenship, and prevent duplicate or erroneous registrations.
 
“States must adhere strictly to federal laws designed to protect the integrity of our voter registration system,” said RITE President Justin Riemer. “HAVA’s verification requirements are not optional. They ensure states verify the identity and eligibility of new voters on the front end and guard against duplicate registrations. New York and New Mexico must take corrective action now.”
 
RITE continues to be a national leader in identifying and exposing weaknesses in state voter registration systems, especially when it comes to states’ failures to perform legally required verification processes for new registrants.

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Andrew C. McCarthy

Bestselling author Andrew C. McCarthy is a contributing editor at National Review, a senior fellow at National Review Institute, and a Fox News contributor. He is a former Chief Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York and led the terrorism prosecution against the “Blind Sheikh” (Omar Abdel Rahman) and eleven other jihadists for conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included 

the 1993 World Trade Center  bombing and a plot to  bomb New York City landmarks. After working on other national security cases, including investigations in Africa after the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, he helped supervise the Justice Department’s command center near ground-zero in lower Manhattan following the 9/11 attacks. During his 20-year career as a prosecutor, he received numerous honors, including the Justice Department’s highest awards. He taught trial advocacy at New York Law School, and constitutional issues in criminal law at Fordham Law School. Andy speaks and writes widely on law and national security, radical Islam, politics, and culture. He has testified before Congress as an expert on issues of constitutional law, counterterrorism, and law-enforcement. In addition to his regular columns at National Review, Andy writes frequently for other major national publications. His most recent New York Times bestselling book is Ball of Collusion(Encounter Books, 2019), about the Russiagate controversy (an updated version was published in 2020). His other books include Willful Blindness (2008), The Grand Jihad (2010), Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (2012), and Faithless Execution (2014). He has also written several pamphlets in the Broadside series published by Encounter Books, most recently Islam and Free Speech (2015).

Andrew C. McCarthy

Bestselling author Andrew C. McCarthy is a contributing editor at National Review, a senior fellow at National Review Institute, and a Fox News contributor. He is a former Chief Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York and led the terrorism prosecution against the “Blind Sheikh” (Omar Abdel Rahman) and eleven other jihadists for conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included 

the 1993 World Trade Center  bombing and a plot to  bomb New York City landmarks. After working on other national security cases, including investigations in Africa after the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, he helped supervise the Justice Department’s command center near ground-zero in lower Manhattan following the 9/11 attacks. During his 20-year career as a prosecutor, he received numerous honors, including the Justice Department’s highest awards. He taught trial advocacy at New York Law School, and constitutional issues in criminal law at Fordham Law School. Andy speaks and writes widely on law and national security, radical Islam, politics, and culture. He has testified before Congress as an expert on issues of constitutional law, counterterrorism, and law-enforcement. In addition to his regular columns at National Review, Andy writes frequently for other major national publications. His most recent New York Times bestselling book is Ball of Collusion(Encounter Books, 2019), about the Russiagate controversy (an updated version was published in 2020). His other books include Willful Blindness (2008), The Grand Jihad (2010), Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (2012), and Faithless Execution (2014). He has also written several pamphlets in the Broadside series published by Encounter Books, most recently Islam and Free Speech (2015).

Bobby Burchfield

Bobby R. Burchfield is a co-founder, with Karl Rove, of Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, Inc., and currently serves as RITE’s Chairman. Before retiring from the practice of law in March 2021, after serving as a partner in three international law firms, Bobby was a trial and appellate  lawyer who tried cases before judges and juries and argued appeals throughout the United States. His cases addressed a broad  range of subjects  including antitrust, commercial  disputes, constitutional law,  election law, and class action issues. Bobby argued two important First Amendment cases

in the Supreme Court of the United States (McConnell v. FEC and McCutcheon v. FEC), as well as two dozen appeals in the lower courts. Over a 40-year career, Bobby never lost a jury trial. Among other recognitions, he was listed for many years in Best Lawyers in America, and Chambers Partners rated Bobby highly for Commercial Litigation and for Election Law. Bobby is an Adjunct Professor at George Washington Law School, teaching a seminar entitled “Fundamentals of Free Speech as Applied to Contemporary Issues.” He also serves on the Board of Trustees at Wake Forest University, is Vice President for Finance for the Executive Board of the National Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts (NCAC), is Chair of two Super PACs, and serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board of the George Washington Law School. A graduate of Wake Forest University (BA 1976 with distinction in Economics and Political Theory) and the George Washington Law School (1979 with high honors), where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review, Bobby clerked for the Hon. Ruggero J. Aldisert of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He served as General Counsel of President George H.W. Bush’s Re-Election Campaign in 1992, by appointment of President George W. Bush on the Antitrust Advisory Commission (2005-07), and at the request of President Donald J. Trump as Ethics Advisor to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust (2017-2021).

Bobby Burchfield

Bobby R. Burchfield is a co-founder, with Karl Rove, of Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, Inc., and currently serves as RITE’s Chairman. Before retiring from the practice of law in March 2021, after serving as a partner in three international law firms, Bobby was a trial and appellate  lawyer who tried cases before judges and juries and argued appeals throughout the United States. His cases addressed a broad  range of subjects  including antitrust, commercial  disputes, constitutional law,  election law, and class action issues. Bobby argued two important First Amendment cases

in the Supreme Court of the United States (McConnell v. FEC and McCutcheon v. FEC), as well as two dozen appeals in the lower courts. Over a 40-year career, Bobby never lost a jury trial. Among other recognitions, he was listed for many years in Best Lawyers in America, and Chambers Partners rated Bobby highly for Commercial Litigation and for Election Law. Bobby is an Adjunct Professor at George Washington Law School, teaching a seminar entitled “Fundamentals of Free Speech as Applied to Contemporary Issues.” He also serves on the Board of Trustees at Wake Forest University, is Vice President for Finance for the Executive Board of the National Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts (NCAC), is Chair of two Super PACs, and serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board of the George Washington Law School. A graduate of Wake Forest University (BA 1976 with distinction in Economics and Political Theory) and the George Washington Law School (1979 with high honors), where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review, Bobby clerked for the Hon. Ruggero J. Aldisert of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He served as General Counsel of President George H.W. Bush’s Re-Election Campaign in 1992, by appointment of President George W. Bush on the Antitrust Advisory Commission (2005-07), and at the request of President Donald J. Trump as Ethics Advisor to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust (2017-2021).