[EL] EAC registration data is just as faulty as the Census Bureau's data

[Richard Winger]

Thanks to Charles Stewart for the link to the EAC report, showing the number of registered voters in each state in November 2016.  I am completely puzzled that this data is so much at variance with the official data reported by each state.  For example, the EAC report says there were 24,486,638 registered voters in California, yet the California Secretary of State has never released any report that shows as many as 20,000,000 registered voters.
I obtained the number of registered voters from each state's elections office, and for November 2016 it adds up to 196,144,094.
Yet the EAC says the national total of registered voters was 214,109,367.  And the Census Bureau says it was 157,596,000!
Curtis Gans and his Committee for the Study of the American Electorate always did a great job of compiling registration data, but Gans died and his organization apparently died with him.
America Votes, the election returns reference books published every 2 years, depended on Curtis Gans' data thru 2012.  For 2014 and 2016, it used the Census data, which is clearly wildly inaccurate. Richard Winger 415-922-9779 PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147

      From: Charles H Stewart <cstewart at mit.edu>
 To: Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com>; Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu> 
 Sent: Monday, June 18, 2018 6:07 AM
 Subject: RE: [EL] does anyone know where to find no. of registered voters in each state as of 2016 general election?
   
#yiv6053788462 #yiv6053788462 -- _filtered #yiv6053788462 {font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;} _filtered #yiv6053788462 {panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;}#yiv6053788462 #yiv6053788462 p.yiv6053788462MsoNormal, #yiv6053788462 li.yiv6053788462MsoNormal, #yiv6053788462 div.yiv6053788462MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:New serif;}#yiv6053788462 a:link, #yiv6053788462 span.yiv6053788462MsoHyperlink {color:#0563C1;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv6053788462 a:visited, #yiv6053788462 span.yiv6053788462MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:#954F72;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv6053788462 p.yiv6053788462msonormal0, #yiv6053788462 li.yiv6053788462msonormal0, #yiv6053788462 div.yiv6053788462msonormal0 {margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:New serif;}#yiv6053788462 span.yiv6053788462EmailStyle18 {font-family:sans-serif;color:#1F497D;}#yiv6053788462 .yiv6053788462MsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;} _filtered #yiv6053788462 {margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}#yiv6053788462 div.yiv6053788462WordSection1 {}#yiv6053788462 While there are issues with the data (as there always is with voter registration stats), the one place I know of with (roughly) comparable registration statistics for all states is the EAC NVRA biennial report.  Here’s the link to the link to the most recent report:https://www.eac.gov/assets/1/6/2016_EAVS_Comprehensive_Report.pdf    Charles    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Charles Stewart III Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts   02139 617-253-3127 cstewart at mit.edu    From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>On Behalf Of Richard Winger
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2018 12:36 AM
To: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: [EL] does anyone know where to find no. of registered voters in each state as of 2016 general election?    Although I regularly gather data on the number of registered voters in each state, I only do it for the states that have partisan registration.  But now I need to know for every state, including the 19 without registration by party, and I am surprised that I can't find it in one place on the internet. 

 The Census Bureau purports to have this, but its data is not at all accurate.  I am very surprised that it shows California as 16,096,000 (Census rounds off this data).  But every California registration tally during 2016, from the Secretary of State of California, ranged from 17,300,000 to 19,000,000.  Never was California as low as the census figure.  Nor was California as low as the census data in 2015 either. 

 Professor Michael McDonald has data on the number of votes cast in each state, and the number of individuals who could potentially have registered and voted.  But unless I am not seeing it, there is no registration data there.   Richard Winger 415-922-9779 PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147 

   
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