Some interesting stats I put together from Voter files here in the Cleveland Ohio Area...

[WCGreen]

I am running a campaign for a local Councilman at large in one of the inner ring suburbs...

We are doing a fairly low key primary campaign since we don't have opposition...

One of the things we are doing is sending out Birthday Cards to people whose Birthday falls in June - November...

We are only sending to frequent voters and by this I mean the voters who voted in the 2005 general election as well as the 2006 general election...

I just bought this voter file from the County Board of Elections and it was updated as of January 30, 2007...

So far, we are getting about a 4.5% return...

Think about that for a moment...

45 out of every 1000 frequent voter has changed their address or passed away...

This is the file that will be used on election day to check off voters as the sign in at their voting location...

If that voter just registers as a new voter and didn't file a change of address form with the BOE, he or she will be on the books in two locations...

The BOE is not allowed to remove people from the poll books unless they notify the BOE that they have changed their address...

Once a year the BOE will send out mailings to selected areas in the county and will take returns and investigate to see if that person is still living at that location...

It is very likely that a lot of those voters BD cards that have been returned to us are going to be registered in two locations for at least one and maybe two election cycles...

The purpose of all this is to show people that the total eligible voters in a large county such as Cuyahoga, can be overstated by as much as four and maybe five or six percent...

That means the turnout percentages from one election cycle to the next could appear to be lower and cause people to think that something is a miss...

Just a little more knowledge to use when you are looking at election results...

You should see how the BOE in your area handles the purging of voter files as the first stop on your statistical examination of voter behavior...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. That's interesting...

I suspect this is an angle that occured to you since numbers are your occupation...

You're thinking we should consider this whenever we suspect there have been attempts to rig an election?

I have no idea how they handle the purging of voter files in LA...

I've never received any such mailing to verify where I live...

Thanks for introducing these new ideas!

[WCGreen]

2. They only send them out when they suspect someone has moved...

[GeorgeGist]

3. Nice observation and analysis ...

I don't know what I personally can make of it but if I was nefarious ...


edit: On second thought it re-enforces the notion that the US election system is kinda crappy, and kinda guarantees that our elected governments will be kinda crappy; by-and-large.

[skids]

4. Very good point...

...which essentially means that "voter turnout" is pretty much always understated, since that is probably the case in the vast majority of precincts.

[DeepModem Mom]

5. K&R

[orleans]

6. got a question? how do the voter rolls find out who has died? n/t

[WCGreen]

7. The coroner sends reports to the BOE periodically...

In Ohio, the death certificate of is on file with the coroner and includes social security numbers...

This is a legal document used by the executor of estates to act on behalf of the deceased...

But still, the person who passed on may have been registered at a different address under a different name...

There also is a purge is activated if a person has not voted at all during two presidential election cycles...

That is what triggers the letters sent out by the BOE...

An example of how this could factor into an election investigation is in turnout comparisions...

Cuyahoga County has about 1.4 to 1.5 residents...

For the longest time, the BOE was reporting that there were over 900k registered voters...

But if in reality there are only 825k registered voters, a 500k turnout would, in a presidential election, vastly understate the turnout percentage and thus become suspicious...

It is just something that should be in the investigators analysis of voter behavior...

[orleans]

8. i'm asking because my father died in december right after

a presidential election and i might have voted 2 years later but i probably didn't vote until the next presidential election (nearly four years later) and they still had him on the voter roll. i told them he had died and they made a note of it. the next time i voted (2 or 4 years later his name was no longer on the rolls)

my point being: i had to tell them.

that's why i was asking about it.
i almost shouldn't have said anything and just waited to see how long he stayed on the voter roll.

[WCGreen]

9. By law and for good reason, think of Jim Crow, the BOE's

should always be reactive instead of proactive when it comes to purging names from the voting file...