Caging (voter Suppression)

Caging (voter Suppression)

Voter caging is a method of challenging the registration status of voters to potentially prevent them from voting in an election. It refers to the practice of sending direct mail to addressees on the voter rolls, compiling a list of addressees from which the mail is returned undelivered, and using that list to purge or challenge voters’ registrations on the grounds that the voters do not legally reside at registered addresses. This typically results in the voters' having their votes discarded or submitted through the use of provisional ballots requiring further registration confirmation.

In the United States of America, while this practice is considered legal in many states and is in some cases engaged in by the state's registrar of voters, it has been challenged in the courts, and in some cases where it appeared to have a racial component, it has been declared illegal under the Voting Rights Act. For example in the 2008 US Election, Terri Lynn Land, the Secretary of State of Michigan, was found to be purging thousands of voters from voting rolls based on Voter ID cards being returned as undeliverable. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took the Secretary of State to court over the purges. Judge Stephen J. Murphy ruled the purge illegal under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993 and directed Land to reinstate affected voters. (See full ruling here ).

The argument that vote caging should be illegal is that it could disenfranchise qualified voters simply because of the high possibility that data errors in the mailing list and voters' changing addresses could result in undelivered mail, rather than any problem with their qualifications. The fact that the mailings used to cage voters have had 'do not forward' printed on them resulted in disproportionately disfranchising of students away at college, citizens who move often, and soldiers overseas. In addition, targeting certain neighborhoods with a history of voting for one political party while not targeting areas dominated by the opposing party may lead to a racial component in the disqualifications which raises a serious legal issue under the Voting Rights Act.