Homeland Security Blocks Voter Registration Drive

clipped from www.mercurynews.com Just before Santa Clara County immigrants were sworn in as U.S. citizens, they got voter-registration cards and were shown how to fill them out. At the conclusion of the naturalization ceremony, most new citizens had signed the cards and handed them in to become registered voters. But in March, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services declared that the county registrar of voters must not hand out those cards until the recipients are officially citizens. And now voter registration has plunged by 82 percent. The new policy by the agency, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, has caused outrage among local League of Women Voters volunteers as well as local congressional representatives. "Homeland Security has no jurisdiction over this. They can't limit voter registration," said U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, chairwoman of the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee. "Who do they think they are?"

While it's tempting to see political interference here (Obama enjoys a big lead over McCain among Hispanics), the fact that this is California would make that stupid as all -- there's no way John McCain's taking that state.

More likely, this is just another example of how idiotic, clumsy, and disrespectful of citizens' rights DHS is.