ALEXANDRIA, VA (October 29, 2026) – The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) filed a Help America Vote Act (HAVA) complaint against the New York State Board of Elections after identifying 6,485 sets of apparent duplicate voter registrations across the state and nearly 6,000 active voter registrations with birth dates indicating that the individuals would be at least 110 years old, if accurate. Another 1,516 registrations contained apparent placeholder or fictitious birth dates, raising additional concerns about the accuracy of New York’s voter rolls.
The Foundation analyzed New York’s statewide voter registration database received on September 8, 2026, and identified thousands of apparent duplicate registrations involving matching names, residential addresses, and dates of birth. The analysis also identified records involving common nicknames, spelling variations, and potential errors in birth dates.
Under federal law, HAVA requires states to eliminate duplicate names from computerized statewide voter registration lists. PILF’s complaint requests that the New York State Board of Elections review the identified records, take corrective action to eliminate duplicate registrations, and implement procedures to prevent future violations of federal law.
“New York’s voter rolls infested with dead and duplicate registrations. We found 6,485 duplicate voter registration sets and thousands of active registrations with birth dates that would make the voters at least 110 years old. New Yorkers deserve accurate voter rolls, and federal law requires the state to eliminate duplicate registrations. The State Board of Elections needs to get to work and fix these problems.”
This is not the first instance of the Foundation identifying potential violations of HAVA in the Empire State. In October 2022, a Foundation study revealed that more than 3.1 million voter records at the time did not hold mandatory personal identifying information, such as Social Security or driver’s license data. Upstate New York Congresswoman Claudia Tenney sent investigative letters to the State Board of Elections and the Justice Department, requesting a federal investigation into the matter.
Access records related to the HAVA complaint here.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is the nation’s only public interest law firm dedicated wholly to election integrity. The Foundation exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity and fight against lawlessness in American elections. Drawing on numerous experts in the field, PILF seeks to protect the right to vote and preserve the Constitutional framework of American elections.
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