Backpage.com, a classified webpage service similar to Craigslist, sued the state of Washington this week claiming that a Washington law attempting to reduce sex trafficking of minors could have the unintended effect of shutting down websites that allow their readers to post content. The law prohibits anyone from “advertising [the] commercial sexual abuse of a minor if he or she knowingly publishes, disseminates, or displays, or causes directly or indirectly, to be published, disseminated, or displayed, any advertisement for a commercial sex act” that takes place in Washington state and includes the depiction of a minor.

The law’s goal of protecting children from sex trafficking is laudable, but its language is sufficiently ambiguous that a judge could read it to target website owners that allows users to post ads that aren’t reviewed by the site’s owners. The law does provide a defense for website owners who “made a reasonable, bona fide attempt” to check the age of the person depicted in the advertisement prior to publication. But if the law is read too expansively, it could endanger any Backpage-like site that allows open submissions of advertisements.

Backpage’s complaint claims the law is also unconstitutional:

[The complaint] argues that the law is unconstitutional for several reasons, namely that it allows a site to be held “criminally liable for online content, whether they were aware of the content or not.” . . . Perhaps most significantly, the filing points out the potential breadth of the law’s application: It holds even “social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!, and hundreds of others [online service providers], criminally liable for online content, whether they were aware of the content or not.”

Other states appear to be following Washington’s example. A similar law will soon take effect in Tennessee, and New York and New Jersey are considering similar laws. Depending on how the law is interpreted by courts, the ability of many kinds of sites, including social network and news publishers, to publish third party content may be threatened. With penalties up to a year in prison and/or a fine up to $10,000, the effect of the Washington law and others like it on sites that carry third party content could be substantial.

–Alex Brown

In a letter released this afternoon, Congressman Tom Rooney (R-FL) accuses Attorney General Eric Holder of “supporting voter fraud in Florida.” According to Rooney, Holder is assisting in voter fraud, which is a crime, for the purpose of “aiding the President’s reelection campaign.” Rooney claims Holder of “actively working to enable voter fraud and allow illegal immigrants to cast votes in the state of Florida.”

Late last week, the Justice Department informed the State of Florida that the large purge of registered voters ordered by Governor Rick Scott was illegal and should be ended.

More from Rooney’s letter to Eric Holder:

Florida has uncovered a widespread problem of illegal and erroneous voter registration, exposing as many as 182,000 registered voters as non-U.S. citizens. The Department of Justice has an obligation to work with the state to prevent voter fraud and ensure that illegal votes are not cast, yet your department has consistently obstructed Florida’s efforts and has been either unresponsive or outright hostile to legitimate requests for information.

…Your actions further demonstrate that the Department of Justice, under your leadership, is more concerned with protecting the reelection prospects of the President than with upholding justice and enforcing the rule of law.

Rooney’s belief that 182,000 registered voters in Florida have been identified as non-U.S. citizens is not even shared by Scott. Thus far, the governor has only forwarded around 2700 names for county election officials to purge from the rolls.

Among this much smaller list, local election officials have found hundreds of fully eligible U.S. citizens. As a result of the rampant errors — and the Justice Department letter declaring the purge illegal — all 67 county election supervisors, including many Republicans, have decided to suspend the process.

Further Rooney’s assertion that voter fraud is a widespread problem is contradicted by Florida election officials and law enforcement data.

The State of Florida has until today to formally respond to the Justice Department. All indications, however, are that they plan to defy the DOJ and press forward with disenfranchising voters.

You can read the Department of Justice letter detailing the legal problems with Florida’s voter purge here.

Florida authorities claim that they’re purging thousands of voters from the rolls in order to protect the integrity and fairness of the democratic system, but according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, voting fraud is not a widespread problem in the state:

According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, 178 cases of alleged voter fraud have been referred to the department since 2000. [...]

Fraud, [Ion Sancho, the 24-year veteran election supervisor in Leon County] said, simply isn’t much of an issue. “You are more likely to walk out of your office and get hit by a bolt of lightning,” he said.

Since a 2004 law removed a signature requirement for absentee ballots, the state has not prosecuted anyone for absentee-ballot fraud. Similarly, reforms adopted in the wake of the state’s 2000 recount “required counties to use optical-scan voting machines, created statewide standards for recounts and provided $2 million for a centralized voter database” — further reducing instances of abuse. There are more than 11 million registered voters in Florida.

The Department of Justice has asked Florida to end its current voter purging operation, but state officials — who are expected to respond on Wednesday to DOJ’s request — are likely to continue removing voters from the rolls. “We’ve been acting responsibly through this process,” an official told the Miami Herald. “And our letter will reiterate that while addressing the concerns raised by DOJ. We have continued our efforts to identify ineligible voters.”

Florida Governor Rick Scott sent the strongest signal yet that he plans to defy the Department of Justice and continue purging registered voters from the rolls. Last week, the Justice Department sent Scott a letter demanding an end the voter purge because it was in violation of federal law. His deadline for responding to the letter is today.

Although Florida has not formally responded to the Justice Department letter, a Scott administration spokesman strongly indicated to the Miami Herald that Governor Scott had no intention of ending the purge:

“Our letter will address the issues raised by DOJ while emphasizing the importance of having accurate voter rolls,” said Chris Cate, spokesman for Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who’s in charge of the state’s elections division.

Cate would neither confirm nor deny what was in the state’s response, but he acknowledged that the state disagrees with the federal government and doesn’t plan to throw in the towel. “We know we’ve been acting responsibly,” he said…

“DOJ is making the same argument as the groups that have sent letters to us,” Cate said. “If we disagree with the interpretation — it doesn’t matter who’s raising it — we disagree with the interpretation”…

“We’ve been acting responsibly through this process,” Cate said. “And our letter will reiterate that while addressing the concerns raised by DOJ. We have continued our efforts to identify ineligible voters.”

It’s unclear what the practical impact of Governor Scott’s decision will be, however. All 67 county election supervisors, in light of the Department of Justice letter, have suspended executing the purge. Some have even reinstated voters purged previously. The local election supervisors, not the state, has the ultimate authority to remove names.

As ThinkProgress has documented, hundreds of eligible U.S. citizens — including two 91-year-old WWII veterans — have been wrongly targeted by the purge.