re: #517 lawhawk

This is the actual Pew Research, which suggests that making registrations online and better database management can reduce the issues - getting rid of paper applications and making the process easier to change from one jurisdiction to another will reduce the chances that someone is registered in multiple locations.

There’s no evidence that people are going and voting in multiple locations, even if they’re registered in multiple locations.

Clearing dead voters from voter rolls is a necessary update, and it’s one that lags because of a lack of coordination and data matching:

Comparing registration lists with other data sources to broaden the base of information used to update and verify voter rolls.

Using proven data-matching techniques and security protocols to ensure accuracy and security.

Establishing new ways voters can submit information online and minimize manual data entry, resulting in lower costs and fewer errors.

Far from proviing that there’s voter fraud, this indicates that the problem is with inadequate and poorly targeted funding for boards of elections to maintain and update lists with all the available information out there.

In other words, if I moved within the past year from one state to another, it’s possible that the board of election in the original state might not update even though I’m now voting in my current state. I’d be registered in both, but with no intention of ever voting there.

That’s the situation facing most people in the nation - it’s not some intention to go and engage in voter fraud, but that the databases aren’t cleared. Heck, Brooklyn tried to clear the voter rolls to address these issues, but did so without following the letter of the law.

After flagging voters who do not cast ballots in two consecutive federal elections, the Board of Elections mails notices to determine whether voters still live at the address where they are registered. If no confirmation comes back, a voter can be deleted from the rolls. Board positions are equally split between Republicans and Democrats; each voter removal must be approved by both a Republican and a Democratic employee, according to the rules.

It remained unclear at what point employees at the Brooklyn office stumbled, or who was at fault. One possibility was that the notices to voters were mailed incorrectly, or not at all. Another was that once the notices were returned, the computerized database that held voter lists was mishandled.

On Thursday, the Board of Elections announced that it had suspended a longtime employee, Diane Haslett-Rudiano, the chief clerk at the Brooklyn office and a Republican appointee. Ms. Haslett-Rudiano’s Democratic counterpart, Betty Ann Canizio, who would, by the rules, be required to sign off on any voter removals, remained in her post. Board officials have declined to say why Ms. Haslett-Rudiano was disciplined, saying at the same time that “no voters were disenfranchised.”

“There was criticism that the voter rolls had people who were dead, and so on,” said Frank Seddio, the chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, who said he had discussed the apparent mistake with Board of Elections officials. “That began a citywide review of who’s on the voter rolls and who should be removed. And there’s a possibility that people were taken off the rolls that shouldn’t have been taken off the rolls.”

In that process, more people were disenfranchised than were legitimately dropped.