Voter Purging and hand wringing

It's election time, and that means Democrats are cuing up crazed accusations of voter disenfranchisement. Well, today I came across this article, Protecting Voter Rights | The American Prospect, profiling the Lefty bogey man of "voter purging." The article defines the term as "the process by which states remove ineligible voters from the rolls." But the phrase "voter purging" connotes voters, people, being treated poorly. Merriam-Webster online defines "purge" as,

to cause evacuation from (as the bowels) b (1): to make free of something unwanted (2): to free (as a boiler) of sediment or relieve (as a steam pipe) of trapped air by bleeding c (1): to rid (as a nation or party) by a purge (2): to get rid of

It would be more accurate (though less powerful as a political club) to use phrases like database purging or election roll purging or ineligible voter purging. Indeed, you will find little resistance from me about most of the Brennan Center's suggestions for purging best-practices. But I have to cry foul when Lefties claim that the Republican Party "stole" the 2000 election, or persists in trying to steal elections, by means of "voter purging."

So, did "voter purging" affect the results of the 2000 election, and is it likely that it will affect future elections? Let's consider those questions.

Did "voter purging" (particularly efforts to remove felons--who are not eligible to vote in Florida, from the voter rolls) affect the 2000 presidential election?

No. This article, in one nice little journalistic package (and from a neutral source--The Palm Beach Post), demonstrates that thousands of felons voted illegally, and thousands of persons on the suspected felon list were allowed to vote illegally in counties that ignored the procedures instituted prior to the election (hmmm, which Florida counties do you think made that unilateral decision?). I do not want to pooh-pooh assertions that some persons may have been unfairly denied the opportunity to vote, but there is no, I repeat no, evidence that the felon purge in Florida2000 determined the election. (Indeed, the subject of the article was a man unfairly denied the opportunity to vote for Bush).

Is "voter purging" something to worry about in the 2008 presidential election?

No. Following the 2000 election fiasco, Congress instituted election polices that include what is termed "provisional voting." In sum, provisional voting or voting with a provisional ballot allows for recording a vote when there is a question about the person's eligibility to vote. After the election, appropriate election officials determine--through review of voting records, state databases and information provided by the voter, whether the ballot should be counted. So, short of recruiting God to work the polls on election day, there is no more efficient and effective means of preventing illegal ballots from being cast while ensuring that qualified voters will have the opportunity to vote.

Lastly, accusations of "voter purging"--like most Democrat accusations of electoral shenanigans, have little credibility in light of Democratic Party electoral policy. As long as Democrats push their agenda of laissez-faire election policy, there will be plenty of honest, legal (and Republican) voters being "disenfranchised," because every illegal ballot cast negates a legal ballot cast for the opposing candidate. So, I might lose some sleep of "voter purging" and its cousin "voter caging" when the Left starts taking ballot integrity seriously.