Brian Koenig | The New American | February 15 2012
As the 2012 election nears, a report published by the non-partisan Pew Center on the States asserted that nearly two million deceased Americans are still registered to vote, while one in every eight voter registrations contains significant errors. More than 2.7 million Americans have active registrations in more than one state, and approximately 12 million contain address inaccuracies, likely preventing them from receiving voting-related mail; further, more than 50 million eligible U.S. citizens are unregistered.
The Pew study, which was released Tuesday, also shows that the United States spends more on voter registration while producing worse results than many other countries such as Canada. In fact, the authors note, “Canada, which uses modern technology to register people as well as data-matching techniques common in the private sector, spends less than 35 cents per voter to process registrations, and 93 percent of its eligible population is registered.” Contrarily, a 2008 Pew study administered in Oregon indicated that taxpayers were paying more than $4 per voter to keep lists up to date, and other states have generated similar numbers.
“Voter registration is the gateway to participating in our democracy [sic], but these antiquated, paper-based systems are plagued with errors and inefficiencies,” alleged David Becker, Pew’s Director of Election Initiatives. “These problems waste taxpayer dollars, undermine voter confidence and fuel partisan disputes over the integrity of our elections.”
“We have a ramshackle registration system in the U.S.,” echoed Lawrence Norden, Deputy Director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program at New York University. “It’s a mess. It’s expensive. There isn’t central control over the process.” Norden and his colleagues have been advocating modernization of the voter registration system, but they also caution against states rushing to discard voters from the rolls. “This is something that has to be done very carefully,” he warned.