True the Vote found 136 counties in the United States with over 100% registration. Using a slightly different methodology, the Public Interest Legal Foundation found 141. In a press release issued this week by the PILF, those 11 Indiana counties are identified as Crawford (112%), Scott (107%), Franklin (106%), Brown (104%), Tipton (104%), Union (103%), Orange (103%), Dearborn (102%), Newton (102%), Warrick (101%), and Clark (101%). The "bad county" list can be found here. PILF is threatening litigation if the rolls are not cleaned up.
I went ahead and did the registration statistics for Indiana's five biggest counties (plus 200,000 in population) which don't appear on the list: Marion (92.6%), Lake (95.0%), Allen (96.7%), Hamilton (97.3%) and St. Joseph (99.4%).
Undoubtedly opponents will counter by attacking the messengers as being politically biased, these statistics are based on publicly available data. All you do is need is the registrations for those counties, then divide it by the census figures for the adult age 18 year old population in the county. That will give you the registration rate. I'd welcome anyone disputing the numbers to actually take the time to pull up the data and do the math.
Whenever I hear complaints of Indiana's supposed low turnout rate usually accompanied with claims of electoral barriers erected by evil Republicans, I've pointed to Indiana's bloated registration rolls as the real reason that the Hoosier turnout rate appears low. If you instead measure turnout by using Indiana's adult age population as the denominator, the state's turnout has remained remarkably steady and fairly average compared to other states. Contrary to claims by opponents, real turnout (measure by adult population not inflated registration figures) has not dropped since Indiana enacted the voter ID law.
It used to be that Hoosier voters would be automatically removed from the voter registration lists in if they don't vote at least once in a four year period. Anyone who has worked the polls and handled voter registration will tell you if someone hasn't voted at that location for four years it is almost certain that the person is dead or has moved. Unfortunately the National Voter Registration Act (Motor Voter Law) banned states from doing automatic purges of voters for non-voting. Now to remove someone from the voter registration rolls is a very expensive and process. As a result, voter registrations have soared. In Indiana, before the Motor Voter law, we had a 69% voter registration rate. Now it is 92%.
Congress could do states a favor and allow them to go back to automatic purges for non-voting.
See also:
Monday, June 8, 2015, Hillary Clinton Proposes Worthless Voting Measures to Appease Democratic Partisans
Monday, February 23, 2015, Analysis Shows Indiana's Declining Voter Turnout Due Not to Restrictions But To Inflated Voter Registration Rolls
Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Indiana's Restrictions on Voters Worse than 1965 Alabama? It's Not Even Close
Wednesday, August 15, 2012, Turnout Figures Since Indiana Adopted Photo ID Requirement Does Not Show "Voter Suppression" as Claimed by Democrats
Saturday, June 2, 2012, 90% of Hoosier Adults are Registered to Vote
Tuesday, October 7, 2008, Vote Early & Often? -- 105% of Indianapolis Residents Now Registered to Vote
1 comment:
You are so, so right about this issue, Paul. As a former Ward Chair who managed polling in four precincts, I saw that these bloated voter rolls were a problem, especially in 2008 when so many people claimed to be the person on the rolls but they'd just moved, they couldn't remember if their absentee ballots had been mailed or were received by the Clerk, etc. All of these folks, some with questionable ID to no ID at all, were allowed to vote provisionally or, even when challenged by poll watchers with no real power to stop abuse, simply allowed to vote.
I contacted GOP HQ with what I saw and you can imagine what was done. Absolutely nothing as far I could discern. And at the time we had a big time attorney at the helm of the MCRCC!
IMHO, these swollen voter rolls not only allow for false distortions of turnout, but have allowed for many fake votes. But when the Uni-Party apparatchik refuses to address the issue, to me that amounts to tacit approval of a very flawed voter registration system.
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