[EL] 15,199 voters left off list due to late submission of forms

[Bev Harris]

20% of All 18-year Olds Omitted -- Data Entry Failure for Last-Minute
Registration Forms to Blame

By Bev Harris: Part 2A of a 5-part series on voter list data

There is still time to correct these problems by 2012. This story is not just
about Shelby County, Tennessee, where I believe the elections commission is
competently addressing these problems for 2012. Last-minute dumps of new voter
registration forms was a national problem in 2008, and across America voters
reported that when they showed up to vote, their name was missing from the
list.

The 2008 presidential election brought millions of new voters to the polls, with
enthusiasm especially high among youth and minority voters. Yet in Shelby
County (the home of the great city of Memphis), over 15,000 voters,
disproportionately young or Black voters, were omitted from the list of valid
voters at the time of early voting; by Election Day, the names finally made it
to the list.

These omissions correlate with an influx of last-minute voter registration
forms. This study highlights the importance of third-party registration groups
promptly submitting new registration forms. In some states, 48-hour submission
is now a legal requirement, with somewhat draconian fines for failure to
comply. Regardless of whether prompt submission is the law, it is important to
emphasize the need to educate voter registration groups to promptly submit new
registration forms. Like taking checks to the bank for your employer; like an
insurance agent who must promptly submit forms for those he insures; like a
real estate agent who has to submit bids immediately, voter registration groups
have a fiduciary-like duty to the voter, who has every reason to believe they
will be registered timely after signing forms and entrusting them to a
responsible person.

In Memphis, approximately 30,000 new registration forms flowed in during the
last five weeks before the 2008 presidential election. Only half of these made
it onto the voter list by the start of early voting. Apparently, the number of
new forms being submitted was greater than they could enter into the database
on time.

OMISSION OF VALID VOTERS FROM "WHO CAN VOTE" LISTS

In 2008, Actor Tim Robbins showed up to vote in New York, and was told he was
not on the list. After asserting his right to vote, his registration was
eventually located and he was allowed to vote a normal ballot.(1)

Reports flowing in to Black Box Voting indicate that the "Tim Robbins" problem
happened all over America. In fact, it happened right next to me. When I went
to vote, the woman beside me was told she was not on the voter list. She was
deaf, and the poll worker made no attempt to explain anything comprehensible to
her, so I assisted. Instead of telling her to vote a provisional ballot, the
poll worker told her to register and come back next year. After I asserted her
right to vote a provisional ballot, the poll worker found her registration
after all and she was allowed to vote a normal ballot.

*Registered voters who are told they are not on the voter list may vote a
"provisional ballot", an important right, but provisionals are second-class
ballots. Provisional ballots are examined after the election and if deemed
legitimate, are counted. Unfortunately, poll worker errors sometimes cause
these ballots to be rejected; also, poll workers sometimes fail to inform
voters of their right to provisional ballots; and provisional ballots are not
factored in to Election Night winner projections.

We have not been able to learn much about how these errors take place, or
quantify how many people were left off the lists. Until now. I obtained 87
Shelby County voter lists from 2006 through 2010. Examining these lists reveals
a staggering scope of voter list omissions. Two and a half percent -- 15,199
total voters -- were left off the early voting list. Of these, 9,080 weren't
submitted until the last day of registration.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTING IN ELECTIONS

As a self-governing people, we have the right to authenticate the basic
accounting in our own elections. The most essential parts of this accounting
are:
1. Who can vote (the voter list)
2. Who did vote (the participating voter list)
3. Chain of custody
4. The count

Obstructions or inaccuracies in any of these four areas can create an unfair
election. Inaccuracies in the voter list will certainly affect the count if
valid voters cannot vote, and may affect the count if invalid voters can vote
(I will quantify invalid votes for 2008 in Part B of this report).

WHY WERE VOTERS LEFT OFF THE LIST?

Voter lists show a "Registration Date." In Shelby County, the last day to
register to vote for the 2008 presidential election was Oct. 6, 2008. The later
the voter registration forms were submitted, the fewer voters made it on to the
voter list at early voting:

Date form Submitted # forms # Omitted from Early Voting list % Omitted
Oct. 6, 2008      9,156      8,671        94.7%
Oct 5, 2008       2              2        100%
Oct 4, 2008       892         752         84.3%
Oct 3, 2008       1,516       1,333       87.9%
Oct 2, 2008       1,344       1,040       77.4%
Oct 1, 2008       1,551       660         42.6%
Sept. 2008        16,064      2,150       13.4%
Aug. 2008        6,538          54         0.8%
Jan-Jul 2008     20,000         31       0.2%
Before 2008      596,854        99       0.02%

Clearly, submitting forms during the last few days puts voters at higher risk
for being left off the list.

Omissions for earlier submissions are more difficult to explain. There was time
to enter the September submissions, yet 2,150 of these were omitted, and 184
forms dated months or years earlier were also left off the early voting list.

Even more peculiar, 600 registration dates in the Election Day voter list are
shown as later than the last day to register. Four-hundred and nine of these
didn't make it into the Early Voting list. Twenty-six of these appear to be
typos (examples: 9/23/3008; 10/6/2208). But the rest show registration dates in
late October, 2008. If they registered too late, why do they show up on the
voter list at all? Two hundred and fifty-four are shown as voting; perhaps they
were provisional voters, but that doesn't explain 320 registered too late, who
appeared on the Election Day voter list but did not vote.

The accuracy of voter lists directly affects who can vote. You cannot extract a
voted ballot from an voter who should not be on the list from the count after
it has been cast, and you cannot recover votes from persons left off the list
unless they manage to vote a valid provisional ballot -- by no means a
guarantee, even for voters who are eligible. Inaccurate voter lists alter the
count.

SOME VOTER GROUPS AFFECTED MORE THAN OTHERS
OBAMA VOTERS APPEAR TO BE DISPROPORTIONATELY LEFT OFF THE LIST

Because valid voters left off the early voting list were disproportionately
Black or under age 30, omissions are likely to have especially affected voters
for Obama (based on the 2008 political trends). I have attached the list of
these voters to this article, and would be interested in learning voter
experiences for any who tried to vote early.

Approximately one-fifth of all registered 18-year old voters were left off the
list as of the beginning of early voting. The total number of 18-year-old
voters on the final list was 7,840, or 1.2% of all 2008 registered voters.
However, 1,544 of the 7,840 18-year old voters were omitted from the valid
voter list at early voting, a stunningly high percentage!

Those left off the list were highly motivated: 958 of these managed to vote
(64%); surprisingly, 374 of the omitted 18-year-olds managed to vote early even
though their names were missing from the valid voter list when early voting
began.

Now, that sounds like they weren't so badly affected, until you look at the
18-year-old vote patterns for those who were NOT omitted from the valid vote
list at early voting. Early voting for those left off the list was depressed by
21%, and overall voting was down by 3%.

The college kids were hit hard by having their forms submitted late. Out of
35,802 college-aged voters on the final 2008 list, 4,472 (12.5%) were left off
the valid voters list at early voting. This depressed their early voting by 18
percent. Clearly highly motivated, most of the young voters unable to early
vote tried again, going to the polls on Election Day. Overall turnout was only
slightly depressed. However: Hardly any of the young voters who were omitted
from the early voting list ever voted again.

Age # voters # omitted % of age pool omitted
Age 18       7,840       1,544       19.69%
Age 19       9,381       1,155       12.31%
Age 20       9,198       963       10.47%
Age 21       9,383       810       8.63%

% Black Voters on Election Day % Omitted
37.6%                         43.3%

THE CLUE OF BUTTER AND TICKLE

Enter Earnestine Butter and Blake Tickle, whose unusual voter histories in
Shelby County shed more light on what happened to voters who were omitted from
the list.

Eighteen-year old Blake Tickle shows a voter registration date of Oct. 30 at
early voting, as does 52-year old Earnestine Butter. What is odd about their
records, however, is that both are shown as voting about the same time as they
registered. Some states have same-day registration, but Tennessee does not. The
last day to register to vote was Oct. 6, 2008, and early voting started Oct.
16. Their names did not appear on the early voting list, yet they voted. It was
too late to register, yet they were registered.

It appears that in Shelby County, election workers made special efforts to find
and process forms for voters trying to vote early whose names were not on the
list. This was heroic, but not good enough. Overall, the percentage of early
votes among all voters left off the list was depressed by 20%, indicating that
these voters faced real obstacles. Thousands had to return on Election Day in
order to vote.

Leaving names off the list places voters to an unequal playing field, which can
be exploited by partisans. If the voter is the wrong color, has a voter history
connected with the wrong party, or the poll worker is just too harried or
impatient to help the voter navigate through extra administrative steps needed
to vote, that voter can be disenfranchised. And running around finding forms in
a pile when voters aren't on the list enters legally murky waters.

EARLY VOTING PERCENTAGES WERE DEPRESSED FOR THOSE LEFT OFF THE LIST

According to the Statement of Votes Cast for this election, only 821 provisional
ballots were cast including both early and Election Day votes. A total of
15,199 voters listed on the Election Day voter list were omitted from the early
voting and of these, only 43% managed to early vote vs a 63% early vote rate
for voters not omitted from the list.

Clearly, like Blake Tickle and Earnestine Butter, thousands voted early even
though they weren't on the early voting list, but as evidenced by the depressed
percentage of early votes in the omitted group, thousands had difficulty voting
early.

TRACING THE PROBLEM TO DATA ENTRY LOGISTICS

Enter the next piece of evidence in this small mystery: I found a 2004 worksheet
produced by Democratic then-administrator of elections James Johnson, showing
the maximum number of voter forms they had been able to enter into the database
each day. In 2008, over 14,000 new registration forms needed to be processed in
six days, with 9,000 of these submitted the very last day. Based on the 2004
worksheet, the maximum number of forms they were capable of processing per day
was smaller than the number of registrations needing to be processed.

If we assume that a Democratically-controlled election administration would be
extra-friendly towards getting lots of new Black and college-age registrations
entered, it's hard to understand why they didn't. Hiring large numbers of
temporary workers isn't a particularly good solution and is likely to increase
data entry errors in a database that must be absolutely accurate to protect
voting rights.

Logistics for entering tens of thousands of new voter registration forms at once
can be daunting. In King County Washington, I observed boxes of registration
forms labeled "not entered yet." Then-elections chief Dean Logan had told the
press that all new voter registrations had been entered into the system. When
an employee saw me looking at those boxes, he hid these boxes under a desk.

In late October 2008, the Georgia Secretary of State's office began an
investigation into who threw more than 75,000 Fulton County voter registration
cards into a trash bin. After getting a call from a resident, officials found
more than 30 boxes of voter registration application cards in a construction
trash bin at Atlanta Technical College. (2)

Election officials have told me that when everyone is extra-diligent, putting as
many new registrations as they can into the system, it can crash the statewide
database.

The bottom line is this: When the government requires data entry using deadlines
that are impossible to implement, the result can turn into lies, employee
misconduct and cover-ups. Submitting new registration forms immediately is the
best way to protect voting rights. This will give us more complete voter rolls,
better data quality, with fewer errors, and is the best way to make sure the
voters you just registered can actually vote.

BUT CAN'T THEY JUST VOTE PROVISIONAL?

Saying "they can always vote provisional" is like saying "false arrest is okay
because you can always prove you are innocent." The right to vote with a
provisional ballot does not substitute for getting all valid voters onto the
rolls in time; being left off the voter list puts voters on unequal footing,
and when these omissions disproportionately affect specific voting groups, you
can end up with unfair elections.

SOLUTIONS:

1. SUBMIT VOTER REGISTRATION FORMS WITHIN 48 HOURS

Regardless of what the law says, ethics and duty to the voter say voter forms
should be submitted to the elections office within 48 hours.

We hear heartfelt stories of people just trying to do good works, like the
teacher in Florida who failed to abide by Florida's law requiring 48-hour
submission of voter registration forms. The 48-hour submission law provides
important protections for voting rights, though the fines in states with these
laws are a little over the top. States requiring 48-hour submission definitely
need one more thing: They need to print the 48-hour submission requirement on
the voter form itself.

Even if your state does not require 48-hour submission, real advocates for
voting rights will push hard towards education and quality control to get those
forms in immediately. Voters depend on timely submission of these forms for
their right to vote.

THINK OF IT LIKE TIMELY DEPOSIT OF CHECKS

If your employer gives you a stack of checks to take to the bank, you shouldn't
drive around with them in the back seat of your car for two weeks. You have a
fiduciary duty to promptly deposit the checks, before they can get lost, torn,
fly out the window on a windy day, or fall on the floor to get hidden under the
seat.

Voter registration groups have a fiduciary-type duty to the voter, who
rightfully believes that he is registered to vote after filling out his voter
registration card and giving it to a supposedly responsible person. Let's not
fight for the right to be slipshod with someone else's voting rights. Instead.
I am hoping that all groups involved in voter registration will see the need to
protect their voter's rights with prompt, responsible, 48-hour submission of
new registrations.

2. MAKE IT A FIRING OFFENSE TO FAIL TO DISCLOSE IMPORTANT PROBLEMS

States like Tennessee oversee their elections administrators with an election
commission. This is a good quality control measure (but doesn't replace public
oversight). Active election commissions like that in Shelby County function
like a board of directors, with election employees answerable to the
commission.

Too many times, we see election officials fail to disclose known problems likely
to adversely affect voters. The late data entry for 15,199 voters in Shelby
County should have been disclosed to the commission and to the public.

Most states don't have active bipartisan election commissions. The public has to
rely solely on a couple of administrators to tell the full truth about what's
going on, and fearing for their jobs, they often choose to cover up rather than
disclose. In such cases, citizen groups need to be especially assertive and
obtain accounting for essential functions.

3. ADD A FIELD TO VOTER DATABASES, AND PROVIDE DATABASES UPON REQUEST

I am not a fan of adding more reports to already busy election administration
tasks. One way to improve quality control would be to require a daily
statistical report on voter registration status. But that's a lot of extra
paperwork for everyone. Instead, a streamlined method would be to add "date
received" and "date entered" fields to the voter registration database.

4. ASK FOR THE DATABASES

Public interest groups and certainly political parties should ask for the valid
voter list at three points in time: 1) Date absentees are first mailed out 2)
Date early voting begins and 3) Election Day. Also, the list of participating
voters should be published for absentee and early votes on a daily basis, and
the list of participating voters for Election Day within 72 hours. You can very
quickly bump these lists up against each other to spot problems.

Beginning now, I recommend obtaining the valid voter list and/or the voter
history list each month. These come in text files, with commas or tabs
separating data so that it can also be opened in database programs like Excel,
MS Access, or Filemaker. The cost of these discs should not be excessive -- $25
per disc is reasonable.

NOTES

(1) Nov. 4, 2008, Actor Tim Robbins Finds His Name Was Removed From Voter List
cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/tim-robbins-encounters-confusion-at-the-polls/
Archived at: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/160/78782.html

(2) ATLANTA (AP) -- The Georgia Secretary of State's office began an
investigation into who threw more than 75,000 Fulton County voter registration
cards into a trash bin www.firstcoastnews.com
Archived at: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/138/78474.html


Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org

* * * * *

Government is the servant of the people, and not the master of them. The
people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right
to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to
know. We insist on remaining informed so that we may retain control over the
instruments of government we have created.

Black Box Voting is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501c(3) elections watchdog group
funded entirely by citizen donations.
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
Black Box Voting
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98057


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