The Independent View: Voter Roll Purges using National Voter Registration Systems

In an effort to control voter registration and the ability to double vote, two organizations have created different interstate voter registration systems.

I have been to their presentations and hope we can get to a single statewide system. Each system has their pluses and minuses and operational issues.

Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC)

The Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) is a non-profit organization with the sole mission of assisting states to improve the accuracy of America’s voter rolls and increase access to voter registration for all eligible citizens. ERIC is governed and managed by states who choose to join, and was formed in 2012 with assistance from The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The Pew Charitable Trusts report that 1 in 4 of those polled believed their registration is automatically updated when they move.

The seven states that pioneered the formation of ERIC in 2012 are: Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, Utah, Virginia, and Washington.

The states were inspired to create ERIC due to the challenges in maintaining the accuracy of voter registration records. While most private industry, and many government agencies, have updated their systems to take advantage of modern technology, voter registration systems remain largely based on 19th century tools, such as handwriting on paper forms and postal mail. The inherent inefficiencies in the system result in unnecessarily high costs, and make it difficult to keep voter rolls clean throughout the country. For example, 1 in 8 voter registration records in America contain a serious error.

The ERIC data center is a sophisticated tool that allows states to securely and safely compare voter data, thereby improving the accuracy of their voter rolls. States that choose to participate in ERIC gain access to state-of-the-art technology to compare information on eligible voters from official data sources submitted by the states, such as records from the voter registration rolls and from the state motor vehicle agency, and reports back to the states where there is a highly confident match indicating a voter moved or died, or the existence of a duplicate record. States can then begin the process under federal and state law to clean up the voter rolls, targeting their efforts based on solid data.

Participating states also receive information on unregistered individuals who are potentially eligible to vote. This information, which states have never previously received, will allow them to reach out to those citizens to encourage them to register in the most efficient way and at the most efficient time before an election or registration deadline. Receiving actionable information earlier in the election cycle will reduce costs and administrative burdens to state election officials, while also reducing the incentive for unregulated third-party registration groups to engage in large scale registration efforts.

Benefits of ERIC membership

1. Reduced costs: Enabling election officials to keep their records up-to-date year-round, and discouraging the high volume of inefficient paper registrations driven by third party groups close to major elections will result in long-term cost savings.

2. More accurate voter rolls with the near elimination of duplicate and invalid registrations.

3. Reduced opportunity for and perception of potential election fraud.

4. Improved protection of voters’ privacy.

The Electronic Registration Information Center Crosscheck Program

The program compares voter registration records annually among the participating states to identify duplicate registrations and double votes. It is a tool states can use to maintain clean, current and accurate voter lists and to fight voter fraud.

The program began in 2005 as an agreement between four Midwestern states – Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. The four original states comprised approximately 9 million registration records. Today, the states in the program are: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia and will contain more than 90 million voter registration records in the database to compare in 2014.

Benefits of Membership

(1) Establishes procedures that will increase the number of eligible citizens who register to vote in elections for Federal office.

(2) To make it possible for Federal, State, and local governments to implement this in a manner that enhances the participation of eligible citizens as voters in elections for Federal office.

(3) To protect the integrity of the electoral process.

(4) To ensure that accurate and current voter registration rolls are maintained.

How does it works

1. Each state pulls data on January 15 each year using prescribed data format.

2. Upload data to secure FTP site (hosted by Arkansas).

3. The Crosscheck Program's IT department pulls data, runs comparison, uploads results to FTP site.

4. Each state downloads results from FTP site, processes them according to state laws and regulations.

5. States' deletes all other states’ data.

A federal case has developed using the Crosscheck Progam.

The deadline for registering to vote in Virginia’s November 5, 2013 election is Monday, October 14. Meanwhile, the State Board of Elections has obtained a list of 77,000 Virginia voters that allegedly are also registered voters in some other state. The State Board has asked the various County and Independent City Boards to remove these voters from the rolls before the upcoming election.

On October 1, the Democratic Party filed a federal lawsuit to stop the purge, until after the election. The lawsuit alleges that the list has many errors. The lawsuit also points out that federal law does not permit purges to occur closer than 90 days before an election, although that law only relates to federal elections, not elections for state office. Finally, the lawsuit says that a large proportion of the voters on the list registered in some other state as long ago as ten years, and that the same voters moved to Virginia after that time. The case is Democratic Party of Virginia v Virginia State Board of Elections, eastern district, 1:13cv-1218.

Under the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck program, the 25 member states send their voter registration data to a central location where they are matched based on first name/last name/date of birth/last 4 digits of SSN.

Virginia apparently also checked against its own state voter database and removed voters whose Virginia activity was later than that indicated in the other states.

The issue here is not whether a purge of voter registrations is valid based on, for instance, change of address. The issue is giving voters the time to register again if they are incorrectly purged from the voter rolls, and that’s why caging efforts like this are always undertaken in the last few weeks of an election cycle.

If a voter is incorrectly purged from the voter rolls, and appears at the polls, they may cast a provisional ballot. Then they will have to return with proof they are eligible to vote in that state.