Milwaukee Voters Have Been Dropped from Rolls Some Erroneously

Thousands of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Voters have been dropped from Voter Rolls, including some Erroneously, through the State’s Registration system, City Officials said Wednesday.

Some 44,000 Voters were removed from City Rolls after the State started using a New Process in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), they said. It’s unclear how many of those were dropped in Error.

“This is not a problem that has been caused at the local level,” Mayor Tom Barrett said at a City Hall News Conference.

Barrett said problems were caused by Incorrect Data provided by the State Department of Motor Vehicles and the U.S. Postal Service, leading some Voters who haven’t actually Moved or Changed Addresses to be erroneously Dropped from the Rolls.

“We are very concerned with the number of legitimate voters whose records have been deactivated,” Barrett said.

During the February Primary, a small Turnout Election, nearly 100 City Voters learned they had been Removed from the Rolls even though they hadn't changed Addresses, Barrett said. They were able to Re-Register and Vote, he added. City Officials have been working with the State Elections Commission to identify Errors. The Elections Commission plan doesn't go far enough for Barrett.
He called on the Commission to Reactivate All Voters dropped, erroneously or not, through the ERIC process. But State Election Commission Spokesman Reid Magney said, "At this point, it is too late to move everyone (who was deactivated) back onto the poll list."

Neil Albrecht, Executive Director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, said the 44,000 Voters dropped from the Rolls came after another 40,000 Voters were Purged because they hadn't Voted in the past Four Years. That means the number of Registered Voters in the City of Milwaukee dropped from about 330,000 to 246,000 total, he said. "That number is about the lowest our voter registration records have been in the last 50 years in the City of Milwaukee," Albrecht said. He and Barrett warned that the Errors could Disproportionately affect Voters from Impoverished Communities.

Milwaukee is not the only City that's been experiencing problems due to the Errors. Dozens of Active Green Bay area Voters found out they had been Removed from Voter Rolls when they went to cast Ballots in the February Primary.

Barrett on Wednesday sent a Letter to Gov. Scott Walker urging him to help Reactivate Voters who were Dropped from the Rolls. "The right to vote is fundamental, and exercising that right should be simple and fair," Barrett wrote.

Voters are urged to Check Registration Status and Re-Register if Missing from the Rolls.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Eighth States Quit Free Anti-Voter-Fraud Program Over Security Concerns

The State of Kentucky has pulled out of the Interstate Crosscheck System making it the eighth State to quit the program so far—even though it cost nothing to participate. Kentucky never used the data that it received from Crosscheck for the purpose of Purging Voter Rolls because the data was “unreliable.” Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Grimes also expressed concern about the Security of the Program.

Kentucky officially quit Crosscheck in June 2017 but made no Official Announcement at the time. A tweet by Grimes last week about Kentucky not submitting Voter Data to Crosscheck initially puzzled Activists who were unaware of the State’s decision. Kentucky joined the Program under the previous Secretary of State, Trey Grayson, primarily because it was Free. The Data returned by Crosscheck, however, contained mostly False Positives.

The Program, run by the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office, is meant to help identify People Registered to Vote in multiple States. When someone moves to a new State and Registers to Vote there, for example, their Old Registration doesn’t Automatically disappear. But for every Multi-Registrant identified, Crosscheck generates hundreds of False Positives, according to a Study last year by Researchers at Stanford, Harvard, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and Microsoft.

This Error Rate means a lot of work for the States participating in Crosscheck to identify Voter Fraud, finding actual Multi-Registrants is akin finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. Further, relying on the Data increases odds that Legitimately Registered Voters will be mistakenly Purged from Voter Rolls, particularly if no additional steps are taken to Verify the State in which the Voter currently lives. For the purpose of identifying a Unique Voter, you need more than just a Name and Date of Birth, many States are hesitant to turn over additional Voter Information to Crosscheck, which has earned a Reputation for improperly Handling Sensitive Data. Several States do, however, include Partial Social Security Numbers for Voters whose Names and Birthdays match those of Voters in other States.

Earlier this month, Reports revealed that nearly 1,000 Kansans identified by Crosscheck had the last Four Digits of their Social Security Numbers exposed in Florida, and other Voter Files and the Passwords to Decrypt them fell into the hands of Unauthorized Third Parties last fall. In 2014, the Virginia State Board of Elections accidentally sent Kansas the First Four Digits of Voters’ Social Security Numbers instead of the Last Four Digits. In the same year, Idaho Officials were told to Cancel Registrations of potential Multi-Registrants, only to be informed a month later that Instruction was given in Error. States have routinely Downloaded the Wrong Voter Files or mistakenly Deleted Files intended for other States to Download. Passwords to Decrypt Voter Files have been Leaked on Multiple occasions, as have Credentials granting Access to the Crosscheck Servers that Host them.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s Office had, for years, made available Online records containing the Partial Social Security Numbers of thousands of Elected Officials and State Employees. After Gizmodo said it intended to Report on the Database, Kobach pulled it Offline, yet his Office insisted that he had been required by Law to Publish it in the first place.

Alaska, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington all previously participated in the Free Program but likewise Pulled Out. Bills currently in the New Hampshire and Illinois Legislatures would, if passed, require State Officials to withdraw from Crosscheck. In Kansas, where Crosscheck is run, a Bipartisan Bill known as the Free State Elections Act was introduced this week and would End its Participation.

In an Online Survey last year, a New York Official wrote that when using Crosscheck “there was no guarantee [Social Security numbers] would be private and majority of records were inaccurate.” An Official from Connecticut, which does not participate in the Program, wrote: “Have been advised by some states who have participated that the information provided is labor-intensive and unreliable.” A Maryland Official simply wrote about the Program: “A waste of time.”

As many as 23 States are Enrolled in a similar Program for Voter Roll maintenance run by the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). However, the Program, which has not suffered repeated Security Incidents and the Methodology of which is considered far more Accurate, is not free. Annual Fees vary, but ERIC’s one-time $25,000 Fee is what drove many States to the Crosscheck Program in the first place. In Kentucky, the Secretary of State’s Office is barely receiving enough Money from the General Assembly to fully Reimburse Counties for election Expenses, much less Pay for participation in ERIC.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Interstate Crosscheck Program Dis-Enrolling Voters Under Guise of Preventing Voter Fraud

The Interstate Crosscheck system is a database used by officials in 27 states to identify voters potentially registered to vote in more than one state. States need a mechanism to maintain accurate voter rolls, but the states participating in the Interstate Crosscheck system risk purging legally registered voters, with a significant oversampling from communities of color, from the voting lists.

States in the Database:

- Alaska
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- Colorado
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Indiana
- Illinois
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- North Carolina
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Virginia
- West Virginia

The system flagged roughly 7 million names of “potential double voters” prior to the 2014 Election. However, since 2014, not a single person has been convicted of Double Voting pursuant to Crosscheck data. This large number of false positives is due to Crosscheck not taking into account information that may disqualify a match: Social Security numbers should be disregarded if they do not match, “Jr.” and “Sr.” distinctions are often ignored, and many names on the list have mismatched middle names. Because nonwhite communities share surnames more commonly than white communities, in fact, 50% of Communities of Color share a common surname, while only 30% of white people do, this leads to a greater number of flagged potential double voters, and thus a significant over representation of minority voters on the Crosscheck list. While white voter names are underrepresented by 8%, African American voters are over represented by 45%, Hispanic voters are over represented by 24%, and Asian voters are over represented by 31%.

Voter fraud is very rare and voter impersonation is nearly non-existent. Often alleged fraud is found to be unintentional human error. One account found that while the program has flagged 7.2 million possible double registrants, only four have actually been charged with deliberate double registration or double voting.

However, the myth of voter fraud helps disenfranchise likely Democratic voters. Rolling Stone investigative reporter Greg Palast found that Interstate Crosscheck “disproportionately threatens solid Democratic constituencies: young, black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters, with some of the biggest possible purges underway in Ohio and North Carolina, two crucial Swing States with tight Senate races.”

Voters have been wrongly tagged and listed as registering or voting in two states, just for having common, often "ethnic" names. As many as one million people may lose their right to vote by this November.

This is the first Presidential Election since the Supreme Court gutted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Communities of color are even more vulnerable to voter intimidation and suppression. Interstate Crosscheck is yet another barrier to overcome in order to Exercise our Constitutional right to Vote.

With Republican officials administering Elections in most states, the DOJ is our last line of defense for protecting the right to vote. We need it to aggressively crack down on any attempt to intimidate voters or otherwise suppress the vote in 2016.

CLICK HERE to add your name and tell the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate and release the names of voters on the “Interstate Crosscheck” purge list.

There is an alternative for states looking for a mechanism to maintain accurate voting rolls, which already has been adopted by 12 states, the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a program developed by IBM and the Pew Charitable Trusts. Rather than just matching the voter’s name and date of birth, ERIC requires an exact match across several fields, such as driver’s license number or Social Security number. Furthermore, ERIC gives State Election officials the opportunity to build the rolls as well as clean them, providing lists of potentially unregistered voters as an outreach opportunity and requiring participating states to contact those potential new registrants.

ERIC’s membership now includes 21 members:

- Alaska
- Alabama
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Illinois
- Louisiana
- Maryland
- Minnesota
- Nevada
- New Mexico
- Ohio
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- Utah
- Virginia
- Washington
- Washington D.C.
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin

CLICK HERE for more information about the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC).











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Electionline Weekly March 31, 2016

Legislative Updates

Hawaii: A bill pending in the Legislature would require the State to issue ballots in English and in the Hawaiian language. Currently some counties are required to also offer ballots in Japanese, Cantonese and Ilocano, but under the proposed legislation, all ballots would have to be offered in English and Hawaiian. "I thought it was a little silly that we don't already have the Hawaiian language on the ballot - it's an official language," Rep. Kaniela Ing, who introduced the bill told The Maui News.

Louisiana: The Senate voted 24-11 against Bill 164 to loosen up the rules around absentee voting. Currently only those who will be away from their home parish on Election Day for specific reasons like military service or college. The bill sought to ease those restrictions.

Maine: A bill that would move Maine from a Caucus state to a Primary state has the support of city and town officials as well as the state’s Secretary of State. Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said he would support a Primary being held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March.

New Hampshire: The Senate has defeated a bill that would have allowed for online voter registration.

Rhode Island: This week both chambers of the General Assembly gave final approval to allow Rhode Island to offer online voter registration. The legislation, which is now on its way to the Governor’s desk, also allows the state to join the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). Developed by the Pew Charitable Trusts, ERIC uses the voter registration rolls of member states, as well as several other databases, including DMV records, Social Security Administration records, and the Postal Service’s National Change of Address Registry, to compare voting lists. Using advanced algorithms, ERIC then determines inaccuracies in member states’ lists — who has moved, who has died, and who is eligible to vote but is not yet registered.

Tennessee: The House Government Operations Committee has approved legislation that would allow residents to register online to vote. Those using the online system would still be required to provide personally identifying information, such as a driver’s license number, for verification purposes. The bill now moves to the House Finance Committee.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker