3 ms·

Why is a private company in charge of maintaining this list, versus the state police, or a federal agency in charge of census keeping?

• usefulcat 3y ago
  Most likely it's basically a corporate handout. It can also be a way to invite reciprocity. I don't know if that was part of the original intent here, but given the raft of voter ID laws that the US has seen in recent years (which prevent such an infinitesimal amount of actual voter fraud, yet coincidentally happen to adversely affect voters of one party much more than the other) it doesn't seem at all far fetched. Naturally it's never described that way. It's typically framed as something like 'we should delegate this task to the private sector because they're more efficient'.
  • specialist 3y ago
    Yes and: Since corporations are not subject to public records requests, privatization (outsourcing) is a terrific way to transmute even banal administrative functions into black boxes.