February 26, 2021
Study uncovers flaws in process for maintaining state voter rolls
by Yale University
States regularly use administrative records, such as motor-vehicle data, in determining whether people have moved to prune their voter rolls. A Yale-led study of this process in Wisconsin shows that a significant percentage of registered voters are incorrectly identified as having changed addresses, potentially endangering their right to vote.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, found that at least 4% of people listed as suspected "movers" cast ballots in 2018 elections using addresses that were wrongly flagged as out of date. Minority voters were twice as likely as white voters to cast their ballot with their original address of registration after the state marked them as having moved, the study showed.
The findings suggest that states should more clearly communicate the processes they use to update voter-registration files and that a more robust effort is required to confirm whether individuals have moved before they are removed from the voter rolls, said Yale political scientist Gregory A. Huber, the study's lead author.
"The process of maintaining states' voter-registration files cries out for greater transparency," said Huber, the Forst Family Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. "Our work shows that significant numbers of people are at risk of being disenfranchised, particularly those from minority groups.
"Unfortunately, we don't know enough about the process used to prune voter rolls nationwide to understand why mistakes occur and how to prevent them."
Regularly updating voter rolls prevents registration files from becoming bloated with individuals who have died, moved away, or are otherwise no longer eligible to vote. When these rolls swell with ineligible voters, it raises concerns about potential fraud (although there is little evidence it causes unlawful voting, Huber says) and creates headaches for political campaigns, which rely on accurate registration records to reach potential voters.
Americans are not obligated to inform local election officials when they move to a new address, but federal law mandates that states identify changes in residence among registered voters. To better accomplish this task, 30 states, including Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia have formed the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a non-profit organization that assists them in improving the accuracy of their voter rolls.
ERIC uses various administrative records, including motor vehicle data, change of address information from the U.S. Postal Service, and the Social Security Administration's master death file, to flag registrations that are potentially out of date. It provides states a "movers list" of people who likely have changed residences. The states contact listed individuals, often by sending them postcards they can use to confirm their address. If people do not return the postcards, their registration can be inactivated, starting the process for removal.
Federal privacy protections and ERIC's agreements with member states prohibit the organization from disclosing who is marked as having moved and on what basis they were flagged as such, making it difficult to examine its process. However, after submitting a Wisconsin Freedom of Information Act request, Huber and his co-authors obtained special "movers poll books" from the state which list all people who were marked as suspected movers and who did not respond to the postcard notification. Individuals in the books who showed up to vote in 2018 signed their names in these books, providing evidence that they voted at addresses that had been flagged as invalid.
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https://phys.org/news/2021-02-uncovers-flaws-state-voter.html
https://archive.vn/QDUAm