[EL] McDonald study, birthdate distribution in real voter list

[Bev Harris]

This started because I reported that in two jurisdictions I found duplicate
voters. They do not have common names like Mary Williams. They have names that
appear only twice in the whole database, both times with same birthdate. It is
only sensible to surmise that they are the same person.

Most of the time these twin identities don't vote in the same election.
Sometimes they do. Thus, we can't assume that voter fraud does not exist, but
it does seem to represent a very small number of the overall pool.

By the way, the Wikipedia entry cited by Michael McDonald has almost nothing to
do with the voter birthdate statistics in his report, because it is only
dealing with birthDAY.

Look, the plain truth is, relatively few jurisdictions are likely to have 480
people with the same name, even if the name is Mary Williams. Obviously, if you
do happen to find same birthdate with Mary Williams or Robert Smith, you stick
that in the "maybe" barrel.

But I do have a problem with the McDonald report's implications. He and his
colleagues lead with concerns that thousands of voters have been identified as
double-voting, then use a statistical model to justify the idea that apparent
dups are really the same person. What I didn't see is the actual list of names
claimed to be double voters. If that list of names is not a set of common
names, then the rest of the paper doesn't even apply.

By the way, though I did mention finding double voters in two locations, I
didn't even report the double voters I saw in Shelby County because they were
so plainly impossible. One had been overseas while voting at the polls, another
confined to a nursing home while voting at the polls. Both voted absentee and
somehow their names were also entered into the poll books.

This is the type of fraud I think is the highest risk of all, especially for
absentee voting locations, where an insider can just peruse the lists for
irregular voters and have a field day inserting votes using those names. That's
not double voting, it's voter identity theft, and speaking of New Jersey, in
2009 elections database guys for two out of the 17 counties were convicted of
doing just that.

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.



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