Reply #20: ChoicePoint acquired DBT 'early' in 2000. ChoicePoint, a Defendent, settled in the suit.

[flashl]

Botched Name Purge Denied Some the Right to Vote

The impact of the botched felon purge fell disproportionately on black Floridians and, by extension, on the Democratic Party, which won the votes of 9 out of every 10 African American voters, according to exit polls

"Obviously, we want to capture more names that possibly aren't matches and let the {county elections} supervisors make a final determination rather than exclude certain matches altogether," said Emmett "Bucky" Mitchell, who headed the state purge effort, in a March 1999 e-mail to Database Technologies product manager Marlene Thorogood, who had warned him of possible mistakes.

In an interview, Clay Roberts, director of the state's division of elections, confirmed the policy. "The decision was made to do the match in such a way as not to be terribly strict on the name."

In-house concerns persisted. "Let's remember there is a liability issue in our erroneously identifying individuals as felons or deceased," said George A. Bruder Jr., a company senior vice president, in a May 26, 2000, e-mail to Thorogood. "We need to be very careful in who we label as what. If we are unsure the default should be to NOT label them as anything."

The company admits it made some mistakes. One list sent to Florida officials inaccurately contained 8,000 people who had committed misdemeanors -- not felonies -- in Texas.

People wrongly tagged as felons because of the loose matching policy included judges and the father of a county election supervisor. Also on the list were at least 2,000 felons who moved to Florida from states that automatically restore voting rights.

It was left to local election supervisors to determine whether residents of their counties were accurately listed as felons. With little guidance from the state, county supervisors devised their own rules.

...

In Lake County, by contrast, Supervisor Emogene Stegall decided the list of "probable felons" sent by the state was so flawed that she did not use it.

"They're not sending us what the statute requires them to do, so I feel we're not bound to process those," Stegall said. "They're not sure. There are so many people who have the same name, same date of birth."

ChoicePoint acquired DBT early in 2000, not after the 2000 election.

Are 'we' now to accept that the largest provider of law enforcement and intelligent information to states and the federal government will accept requests to provide 'cherrypicked' information to officials on demand?