WASHINGTON – More than 24 million voter-registration records in the United States— about one in eight — are inaccurate, out-of-date or duplicates. Nearly 2.8 million people are registered in two or more states, and perhaps 1.8 million registered voters are dead.
Those estimates, from a report published today by the non-partisan Pew Center on the States, portray a largely paper-based system that is outmoded, expensive and error-prone.
"We have a ramshackle registration system in the U.S. It's a mess. It's expensive. There isn't central control over the process," said Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.
Experts say there's no evidence that the errors lead to fraud on Election Day. "The perception of the possibility of fraud drives hyper-partisan policymaking," said David Becker, director of Pew's election initiatives. But inactive voters do cost money. Inaccurate lists mean wasted money on mailings and extra paper ballots.
In Wood County, Ohio, home of Bowling Green State University, there are 106% as many registered voters as there were people in the 2010 Census. "We can't explain it, but obviously having a major university here creates challenges to having our voter-registration list cleaned up," elections director Deborah Hazard said.
Multiple registrations
Nearly 2.8 million people are registered to vote in more than one state.
Number of people registered in:
Two states — 2,688,046
Three states — 68,725
More than three states — 1,807
Source: Pew Center on the States
The 1993 National Voter Registration Act, known as the "motor voter" law, made it easier for people to register to vote by, for example, allowing them to register when they get a state driver's license.
That same law also made it more difficult to remove someone from the voting rolls. Unless officials have a death certificate or written confirmation from the voter that they've moved, a voter must miss two presidential elections — that's eight years — before they can be removed.
The problem is particularly bad in swing states, where parties, campaigns and others canvass the state registering voters, even if they're already registered, and often collecting inaccurate information, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said. "Everybody's registering you here," he said. "We don't really have control of that."
Husted is asking the U.S. Justice Department for guidance on how to clean up the rolls before the presidential election without violating motor voter. "It undermines voter confidence and creates the potential for voter fraud where people could act and vote on their behalf," he said.
Pew's solution: create a multistate data center to give officials voter registrations, motor vehicle records and death certificates from other states, allowing them to spot records that could be removed. That effort is starting this year with Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington.
"This gives election officials more control over their lists," Becker said. Even so, the motor voter law still applies: "Nothing happens automatically, and even more importantly, it requires something affirmative from the voter."
Hazard said Ohio has a similar system to catch voters who die in Ohio, or move within the state. But if a voter moves or dies elsewhere, they can remain on the rolls for years.
Victor Cuvo
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