The ACLU won a key voting rights lawsuit today when U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy ruled that the state of Michigan had illegally purged voters from the state’s central voter file based upon returned mail and on getting a driver’s license in another state.

It should be noted that Murphy is a Republican, nominated by George W. Bush for the district court and for the appeals court bench. His appeals court nomination was blocked by Democrats.

Murphy’s is not a final ruling in the case, which must now go to trial. But the judge made very clear that both practices are illegal and ordered those who have been purged from the rolls to be replaced for the upcoming election pending the final outcome in the case.

Land has lost these suits in the past. In 2004, there was a suit over her directive that provisional ballots cast at the wrong precinct not be counted at all. The judge in that case was David Lawson.

This most recent case challenged two practices put in place by Sec. of State Terri Lynn Land — a Republican regarded as a possible candidate for governor in two years — for removing voters from the Qualified Voter File (QVF).

The first was that they automatically removed anyone from the rolls if the voter card that was mailed to the new registrant came back returned. The second was that they automatically removed anyone from the rolls if they got a driver’s license in another state. 

See the full ruling here. 

The problem, as the ruling notes, is that the law requires that voters whose registration card is returned by mail as undeliverable be marked as “verify” or “challenged” rather than “rejected.” The court ruled that the Sec. of State was violating the law and issued an injunction against the practice.

In the second situation involving driver’s license, the ruling notes that most states require that a person surrender their old state license when applying for a new one. The problem is that many states also require someone to apply for a new license in that state if someone moves there.

So in the case of college students who may go to an out of state university, they have to get a driver’s license in that state and are required to surrender their Michigan license. When that happens, Michigan automatically marks them as “cancelled” and they cannot vote here. But many of those students may well still vote back home, either traveling back or using an absentee ballot.

Judge Murphy issued a preliminary injunction on the first practice but not the first. He did, however, reject the state’s arguments in this regard and rule that the practice of removing voters from the rolls if they get a driver’s license in another state is illegal.

He did not issue a preliminary injunction on this question because of some doubts about standing, since none of the plaintiffs were in that situation. He did make clear, however, that the practice is illegal:

The Court’s analysis of the standing issue should not be construed to mitigate what seems to be the clear unlawfulness of what the Secretary is doing with regard to out of state driver’s license applications.