As Florida’s secretary of state and chief elections officer, I have a duty to ensure that Florida’s voter-registration rolls are current and accurate. If my department receives credible and reliable information that ineligible voters are registered to vote, we must take the appropriate actions to ensure the integrity of Florida’s voter rolls.

The Florida Department of State received information last year indicating that noncitizens may be registered to vote in Florida. Because all it takes is one ineligible voter to neutralize the vote of an eligible voter, my department began working to process this information and begin identifying the non-citizens that must be removed from the rolls.

In April 2012, the names of more than 2,600 potential noncitizens were sent to the state’s 67 county supervisors of elections for an additional review of the information we received. The Florida statutes require supervisors of elections to review the evidence and contact potentially ineligible voters before removing them from the rolls. Since April, supervisors have indicated that more than 100 ineligible voters have been removed for being noncitizens. Despite our success identifying ineligible voters based on the information available to the state, there is the potential to identify and remove additional noncitizens, potentially thousands, on the voter rolls if the federal government is willing to support our efforts.

Knowing this to be the case, we have spent the last year making repeated requests for access to the most comprehensive database of information on noncitizens, a database that belongs to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. However, the federal government has refused to grant us access. Complicating our efforts, the U.S. Department of Justice recently demanded we stop removing noncitizens from the voter rolls until after the general election in November.

The stance of the federal government hardly seems like an approach earnestly designed to protect the integrity of elections. As a result, the Florida Department of State recently filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to grant us access to their database of noncitizen information, and we are fighting a lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice claiming we cannot remove noncitizens from the voter rolls.

The actions by the federal government are negatively affecting Florida’s ability to fulfill its legal obligation to verify voter registration rolls are current and accurate.

Florida’s primary election is Aug. 14, making it even more urgent for the federal government to join our efforts to ensure the integrity of Florida elections. It’s not just the lawful thing to do, it’s the right thing to do.

Ken Detzner,

Florida secretary of state,

Tallahassee