Back on February 18, 2009, the ACLU Voting Rights office sued South Dakota election officials for removing two voters from the voter registration rolls, in apparent disregard of state law. South Dakota, like most states, does not permit felons to vote while they are imprisoned. The lawsuit charged that two voters had their names removed from the rolls after they were convicted of a felony, even though they were not sentenced to prison. This apparently happened because communication between federal courts and elections officials is faulty. The federal court e-mails a message to the Secretary of State when someone is convicted of a felony in federal court in South Dakota. But the e-mail does not disclose whether that individual was sentenced to prison or not. Elections officials assumed the two individuals were sent to prison (even though they weren’t sentenced to prison), and removed them from the rolls.
On February 8, 2010, nearly a year after the initial case was filed, the ACLU expanded the case, and seeks to make it a class action. This is because the ACLU believes the problem involves hundreds of individuals, not just two individuals. Here is the amended complaint. The case is Janis v Nelson, 09-5019.
