INDIANAPOLIS — An independent, nationwide analysis of voter rolls in 42 states has identified thousands of probable deceased and duplicate registrants, as well as cases of individuals credited for voting more than once. The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) has launched the Safeguarding America’s Votes and Elections (SAVE) Database as an analysis tool to track voter roll deficiencies and potential problem areas across America. Announced today, the groundbreaking findings in their national report indicates that the SAVE Database raises serious concerns over the integrity of states’ voter files as election officials anticipate a surge in mail-in voting this fall.
SAVE revealed 349,773 apparently deceased registrants across 41 states’ voter rolls, with New York, Texas, Michigan, Florida and California alone accounting for 51 percent of the total.
During the 2018 General Election, 37,889 likely duplicate registrants are apparently credited for casting two votes from the same address, and 34,000 registrants appear to have voted from non-residential addresses. Additionally, 6,718 registrants were apparently credited for voting after death. During the 2016 General Election, SAVE revealed that number was higher, with a total of 7,890 registrants apparently being credited for voting after death.
After PILF collected data from 42 states and put it into a format where it could be studied, it was rigorously compared to commercial and government databases to increase confidence in the conclusions with particular emphasis on validating identities matched across state lines. Also included with the data were voter history fields, namely, data about when each registrant voted. The combination of state election data, commercial data, and federal sources such as the Social Security Death Index, provides researchers with perhaps the best platform ever constructed to analyze the health of the voter rolls and catalogue potential vulnerabilities.
The findings are a helpful starting point for state election officials to review the findings and make final determinations and take appropriate actions.
Notable Findings:
349,773: total number of potentially deceased registrants across 41 states.
Michigan, Florida, New York, Texas and California account for roughly 51% of national dead registrants.
In 2016, 7,890 registrants were apparently credited for voting after death.
In 2018, 6,718 registrants were credited for voting after death.
North Carolina leads the U.S. in dead registrants credited for voting after death.
43,760 likely duplicate registrants appear to have cast second votes in 2016 from the same address.
37,889 likely duplicate registrants appear to have cast second votes in 2018 from the same address.
Thousands of these apparent double votes were exclusively mail ballots
8,360 – Number of registrants apparently registered in 2 states and credited for voting in both states in 2018.
5,500 – Number of apparently duplicate registrants credited for voting twice in the same state from 2 different addresses in 2018.
34,000 – Number of registrants credited for voting from apparently non-residential addresses in 2018.
(LAS VEGAS, NV.) – August 5, 2020: The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) today released a research brief detailing mail balloting return figures for Clark County, Nevada, during the June 2020 Primary.
Almost 1 in 5 ballots were returned undeliverable by the U.S. Postal Service, according to Clark County figures released to the Foundation this week. A stunning 42 percent of undelivered mail was addressed to “active” registrants.
“These numbers show how vote by mail fails. New proponents of mail balloting don’t often understand how it actually works,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said. “States like Oregon and Washington spent many years building their mail voting systems and are notably aggressive with voter list maintenance efforts. Pride in their own systems does not somehow transfer across state lines. Nevada, New York, and others are not and will not be ready for November.”
Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is a 501(c)(3) public interest law firm dedicated 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.
TAMPA — As America’s most prized presidential battleground state and a focal point for increased voter turnout, Florida is ill-prepared for mail-in voting according to a new scathing report. The analysis found that Florida’s flawed voter rolls include widespread deceased and duplicate registrants, potential for double voting, and registrants with non-residential addresses.
“Florida’s concerning registered voter lists paired with the expected surge in vote-by-mail this fall is like watching a high-speed train collision occur in slow motion,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said. “As a must win state for both political parties, Florida’s history with election integrity, ballot counting and voter rolls makes it particularly vulnerable to potential errors and fraud as we near Election Day. Our report’s findings will hopefully spur action by election supervisors and officials across the state to protect the integrity of the coming elections.”
Summary of Findings
Deceased registrants — South Florida dominates in terms of deceased registrants remaining on the voter rolls, with Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade among the top counties. As of October 2019:
Palm Beach: 3,656 deceased voters on list and 139 votes cast by deceased voters.
Broward: 3,339 deceased voters on list and 10 votes cast by deceased voters.
Miami-Dade: 2,323 deceased voters on list and 45 votes cast by deceased voters.
Hillsborough: 1,121 deceased voters on list and nine votes cast by deceased voters.
Orange: 1,000 deceased voters on list and nine votes cast by deceased voters.
Double voting – 1,836 Floridians’ records indicate that they voted twice in a national election with a second vote being cast in a different state.
(LAS CRUCES, NM.) – May 2020: The Public Interest Legal Foundation
(PILF) presents Down the Hatch: How Left-Wing Election Reforms Can Be
Forced on Unsuspecting Communities, a new report detailing how sweetheart
deals with outside groups can change election laws and “design” better “cultures.”
More Than 2 Million Ballots
Also Sent to Wrong Addresses
(INDIANAPOLIS, IN.) –
April 13, 2020: The Public Interest Legal
Foundation (PILF) today released a research
brief detailing national figures for mail balloting failures, according to
previous federal surveys.
Roughly 1 in 5
ballots never completed the mail voting process in the past decade.
“Putting
the election in the hands of the United States Postal Service would be a
catastrophe. Over the recent decade, there were 28 million missing and
misdirected ballots,” PILF President and
General Counsel J. Christian Adams said. “These
represent 28 million opportunities for someone to cheat. Absentee ballot fraud
is the most common; the most expensive to investigate; and can never be
reversed after an election. The status quo was already bad for mail balloting.
The proposed emergency fix is worse.”
PILF relied on
U.S. Election Assistance Commission survey data to compile national figures
regarding mail ballot errors. The federal surveys reflect the 2012, 2014, 2016,
and 2018 General Elections.
The EAC defines “unknown” ballots as those that “were not returned by voter, spoiled, returned as undeliverable, or otherwise unable to be tracked by your office.”
Summary of
Findings – 2012 thru 2018
Total Ballots
Transmitted – 146,371,771
Number of Ballots
Official Marked “Unknown” After Mailing – 28,359,530
Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is a 501(c)(3) public interest law firm dedicated 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.
Year-Out Review Finds Vulnerabilities in Election Systems
(WEST PALM BEACH, FL.) – November 4, 2019: The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) today released Calm Before the Storm: Are Palm Beach County’s Elections Protected Against Emerging Threats?, a new report detailing a variety of vulnerabilities and data findings within the overall Palm Beach County voter registration system.
“We are one year out from the 2020 General and this report is a stark reminder that you can’t have election ‘security’ without integrity first,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said.“Palm Beach County serves as an example of the types of vulnerabilities found within Florida’s voting system that could be leveraged by an outside saboteur. Our research suggests these problems are fixable well before the presidential election.
“I want to particularly commend Supervisor Link’s office for not only providing necessary data during our research, but also keeping an open door and accepting our findings,”Adams added.
(INDIANAPOLIS, IN.) – August 19, 2019: The Public
Interest Legal Foundation
(PILF) is spotlighting jurisdictions across 29 states for in-depth inspections
of voter registration records and local list maintenance practices in
preparation for the 2020 presidential election. At least 244 counties across 28
states plus Alaska and D.C. report bloated voter rolls to federal officials. In
response, public records research, voter roll audits, and various litigation
activities are now underway.
“One of the most effective strategies for protecting the integrity of
American elections is keeping voter rolls clean,” PILF President and General
Counsel J. Christian Adams said. “Carefully
maintained records will better prepare state and local governments to quickly
recover from any future cyber-attacks. In addition to fraud concerns, unkempt
rolls can serve as a warning signal to future corruption and failures in local
governments.”
Registrants in highlighted jurisdictions can expect a variety of research techniques and legal actions from the Foundation in preparation for the 2020 Election, such as full battery voter registration records request letters and comprehensive voter list audits. Based on these efforts, the Foundation will opt for formal agreements addressing corrective strategies where possible or, federal litigation under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993.
The NVRA (also known as “Motor Voter”) requires state and
local election officials to properly maintain voter rolls and ensure that only
eligible voters are registered. Holding more registrants than living adults
indicates that election officials have failed to properly maintain voter rolls.
States with counties of concern are (# of counties):
Kentucky (58), Michigan (29), South Carolina (25), Mississippi (22), Colorado (19),
Alabama (14), Illinois (13), South Dakota (11), Kansas (8), Texas (8), Nebraska
(6), Georgia (5), West Virginia (4), Iowa (3), Montana (3), Missouri (2),
Washington state (2), Louisiana (2), Florida (1), New Mexico (1), Arizona (1),
Arkansas (1), California (1), Indiana (1), New York (1), North Carolina (1),
Virginia (1), and Wyoming (1). Alaska and Washington, D.C. also join the list.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation has a distinguished record of bringing litigation
against counties and locales with bloated voter rolls—yielding settlements and
consent decrees that, if followed properly, will put jurisdictions on a path to
more realistic voter registration rates. PILF has been involved in bringing
nine separate lawsuits in the last two years to enforce list maintenance
provisions of the NVRA, including in Texas, Mississippi, Florida, North
Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania. The Foundation works to ensure that voting
records meant to be publicly available are disclosed according to federal law.
In the past two years, PILF sued jurisdictions in Texas, Pennsylvania, and
North Carolina to enforce public inspection rights.
If a state or local official fails to respond to PILF’s correspondence
or corrective findings, they risk a federal lawsuit.
A listing of all jurisdictions flagged for registration rates exceeding 100% can be found, here.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation is the
nation’s most active public interest law firm dedicated to enforcing the
National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and ensuring the integrity of American
elections – bringing more than a dozen cases to enforce voter list maintenance
obligations and inspection rights under federal law in federal courts across
the nation in addition to serving as amicus
in more than a dozen voting law cases. The Foundation also works with election
officials and policymakers to improve the integrity of elections.
Public
Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is a 501(c)(3) public interest law firm
dedicated 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. ###
Michigan, like other states and jurisdictions studied before, demonstrates how noncitizens become registered to vote through DMV transactions and others like it required by the National Voter Registration Act (aka Motor Voter). The State does not have a verification system keeping false claims of citizenship (intentionally given or otherwise) from being accepted during voter registration. Immigrants and citizens alike continue to suffer the consequences. Several Michigan jurisdictions also exhibited alarming problems with other voter roll maintenance obligations like duplications and potentially deceased registrants remaining on the rolls for years on end.
“Motor Voter is failing Motor City,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said. “Like this Foundation has seen in other jurisdictions, Motor Voter is inviting noncitizens onto voter rolls. This report also encourages state and local officials to take a closer look at procedures that are yielding alarming numbers of duplicate and potentially deceased registrants.”
Sanctuary jurisdictions in seven states disclosed various data demonstrating how noncitizens entered their voter registration systems, voted, and were later revealed to be ineligible—often taking years for discovery. In many cases, a state’s implementation of the National Voter Registration Act, also known as the “Motor Voter” law, invited noncitizens to participate in voting and relied on those same individuals to self-report their actions at their own peril.
Summary Totals of Self-Reported or Cancelled Alien Registrations
Fairfax County, VA: 1,334
Middlesex County, NJ: 346
Chesterfield County: VA: 321
Philadelphia, PA: 317
San Diego County, CA: 264
Chicago, IL: 232
Arlington, VA: 145
Essex County, NJ: 107
San Francisco County, CA: 28
DeKalb County, GA: 11
New York, NY: 6
Riverside County, CA: 6
Ocean County, NJ: 3
3,120 Noncitizen Removals
“The failures of Motor Voter are clearly visible in sanctuary cities,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said. “A terrible combination of bad Motor Voter enforcement, increasing chatter over noncitizen voting rights, and simple disregard for immigration law creates an environment for illegal voting. Bad actors and unassuming immigrants are caught up in this system all the same. Congress must update and fix the flaws in the Motor Voter system.”
Amid federal litigation with the Pennsylvania Department of State for complete access to noncitizen voter registration records, Allegheny County election officials disclosed hundreds of pages detailing how noncitizens were regularly offered voter registration by government employees and third-party drives, despite language barriers and clear understandings as to what they were signing. With no comprehensive system for detecting and removing ineligible voters from the rolls, the majority of cancellations derive from noncitizens self-reporting their own deportable offenses.
139 instances of noncitizen voter registration and eventual cancellation were disclosed by the County from 2006 to 2018.
27 percent of noncitizens cast at least one ballot prior to removal.
Noncitizens remain registered for an average of six years before they are removed.
71 percent of noncitizens self-reported their ineligible registrations at great legal risk.
63 percent of noncitizens were registered in PennDOT transactions.
Allegheny County officials raised alarm about the system failures with the Commonwealth in 2008.
“Noncitizens have voted in Pennsylvania because Motor Voter registration is broken,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said. “This report proves how Pennsylvania failed citizens and immigrants alike. For decades, unassuming immigrants were invited to break the law in a systematic fashion while citizens suffered the consequences of vote dilution. Pennsylvania needs a comprehensive election integrity solution and Allegheny County clearly demonstrates what is at stake if the problem isn’t fixed. Congress must update and fix the flaws in the current Motor Voter system.”
Our press release on the report is available here.
Access to exhibits referenced throughout can be found, here.
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