Many Counties Have Highly Inaccurate Voter Lists by Thomas Hargrove

Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.

Note: The situation with voter registration issues has gotten worse in the nearly four years since Hargrove wrote the previous article.

May 4, 2004 — Voter registration is so widely mismanaged in America that election officials in 261 counties certified more voters than the actual adult population during the presidential race four years ago.

Inaccurate voter rolls have grown substantially worse in recent years as state and local officials increasingly fail to keep track of the millions of voters who die or change address. During the 1996 federal elections, 190 counties had registered more voters than there were residents of voting age, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of registration records nationwide.

"We've been left with some really shoddy lists," said Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, in Washington. "The biggest problem with this is the potential for abuse. And nobody knows how much inflation in the voter lists we have right now."

The problem is so widespread that the states of Alaska and Montana certified more voters than adult population for the 2000 general election.

Many officials blame the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 — the so-called "motor voter bill" — for allowing people to register while applying for driver's licenses. Congress tried to rectify the problem in 2002 in the Help America Vote Act, which ordered states to create uniform voter-registration databases to identify dead, duplicate or missing voters.

But odds seem slim for a significant cleanup in time for November's political showdown between President Bush and challenger John Kerry. Forty-one states have asked for waivers exempting them from the new federal mandates until 2006. A few counties already operating with central databases have experienced only modest improvements in over-registration.

Polling workers say the problems are obvious

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"People stay on these lists indefinitely," Elections Judge Len Langeland said while holding up a sheaf of computer printouts during the April 27 Pennsylvania presidential primary. "Certainly, they remain for years and years after they've moved away."

Chester County, Pa., Department of Voter Services Director Linda Cummings said federal and state laws prevent her from easily striking the ineligible voters on Langeland's list. She said she must have legal proof that a voter has died or moved, or wait until the voter has been inactive for at least four years.

"It's frustrating because our hands are tied," Cummings said. "People are constantly telling us about voters who've moved. But that is not sufficient to remove someone from the list. We have to get a signature from the voter."

The 2000 presidential election offered a rare glimpse into the flaws of voter registration since it coincided with the decennial census, providing a fairly accurate population count with which to compare. The Scripps Howard study found that 261 counties in 30 states had a registration rate greater than 100 percent of the adult population.

Under the motor-voter act, local and state election officials can place voters who may have died or moved away on an inactive voter list for two federal election cycles, usually about four years. If the voter has not appeared to cast a ballot during this time, the state may permanently strike the voter's name.

The study found that many election officials around the nation are able to keep their lists relatively clean despite the motor-voter act. The median registration rate among America's 3,156 counties and election districts is 85 percent.

The Scripps Howard study found that inaccurate voting rolls occur more often when states and counties fail to follow proper accounting procedures. For example, 12 states do not count the number of ballots cast in their elections, critical information to ensure that votes are not lost during ballot tabulation.

"In Minnesota, we meticulously count the ballots so that they are all accounted for," said Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, also [past] president of the National Association of Secretaries of State. "I just assumed all the other states do this, as well. How can you balance a checkbook if you don't know how much money you have?"

The states that don't count ballots are Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Indiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. The Scripps Howard study found those states were much more likely to have poorly maintained voter lists than the rest of the nation, accounting for 106 of the 261 counties with registration rates over 100 percent.

A few counties, and even whole states, have made dramatic improvements in recent years.

"Yes, we'd heard that there were more voters in Montana than were eligible," said Montana Elections Deputy Elaine Graveley. "We've worked extensively with the state Vital Statistics Bureau (to clear the names of deceased voters) and to put together a statewide voter database."

Montana had been 104 percent registered with 698,260 voters four years ago, but managed to trim the rolls to 606,147 by the 2002 primaries, about 88 percent of the adult population.

Most election officials contacted for this story said they hope the Help America Vote Act of 2002 — also called HAVA — will correct many of the problems caused by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

"HAVA was passed, in part, in response to this problem," Minnesota's Kiffmeyer said. "Every state must have a centralized registered-voters list to avoid duplication. Most states took waivers, needing more time. So the act won't take full effect until 2006. So we don't yet know how much effect HAVA will have."

Reach Thomas Hargrove at hargrovet@shns.com

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| Chapter 6 — Pitfalls Of Statewide Voter Registration Databases |

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Last modified 6/14/09