Secretary of State Sam Reed has been congratulating himself for years on the statewide voter database which has an advertised debut date of Jan. 1, 2006.
The electronic database of registrations, which goes online Jan. 1 to comply with a 2002 federal law, should identify many illegally registered felons among the state's 3 million voters. It also should curtail voting in the names of dead people and clean up many duplicate registrations, officials say.As it turns out, it won't be 100% ready on January 1. I received this clarification from an official at the SoS office:
We are planning on the file’s availability on January 3, 2006, which is the first business day of the New Year. But you should know that it will be the initial load and will not have the death or duplicate comparisons completed on it at that time. Those will be done during the first weeks of January. The felon comparison will be conducted after the February special election. My recommendation for the cleanest list is January 30. The felon comparison will require 30 days to complete including any due process, so that would make the first half of March a good time.Being the data guy that I am, I've already sent in my order for a copy of the initial version as soon as it is available. (For one, I'd like to compare the dirty version with the first "clean" version) I was told that "It may take a couple days after January 3rd to get CD ready and in the mail to you.". I'll keep you posted. The SoS office admits in the article that the new database "won't do much to curb registrations by voters at addresses that aren't really their residences". But if at least felons and the deceased are removed from the voting rolls more promptly than currently, that will be a good thing. It will also be good if the statewide database will do a better job of removing duplicates. The Secretary of State could also match the statewide list against the federal immigration database to remove non-citizens, but it's not clear yet whether he will actually do so. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 29, 2005 12:32 PM | Email This
Will the State cross check their voter files with Oregon's files?
Posted by: sgmmac on December 29, 2005 02:15 PM" In Washington state, Reed noted that 12 of the state's 39 counties use touchscreen machines and have already ordered parts for more than 190 machines that will now have to provide a paper trail of votes as well. The measure was one of several laws passed this year in an election reform effort following last year's hotly contested governor's race.
Reed said that with a majority of the state's counties switching to all vote by mail - 33 so far - the amount of equipment needed might be less. But he worries that with other states scrambling to get the same paper-trail equipment, vendors may not be able to get the equipment to everyone in time.
"That is going to be a challenge, a challenge they tell us they can meet, but it's an area that I have some concern," he said."
What a bunch of crap! Reed knows damn well that he isn't waiting for any equipment! In fact - that's probably one reason behind the frenzy to change all counties to All Mail voting within one year! So they could get around the voter database requirements! And to think....Sam Reed is the "president" of the National Association of Secretaries of State! I give up!
Posted by: Deborah on December 29, 2005 03:01 PMIn the 04 presidential election, there were instances of Oregonians trying to vote at the polls over here. Many of them were turned away because they couldn't prove they lived here. But they were given a provisional ballot "just in case" oh, don't cha know! Weather or not these ballots were validated in another question.
Posted by: kim in vancouver on December 29, 2005 03:11 PMI wasn't aware of the Oregon connection, although I am not at all surprised. Wish Oregon had someone tougher than Lars keeping pressure on the .gov from our side.
Thanks for the information again.
Posted by: dkm on December 29, 2005 03:44 PMHe is what happens when people don't pay attention. There's another school of thought though - like make lemonade of lemons (Reed) or Don't get mad, get even.. Chew on that good before the next election.
Posted by: KS on December 29, 2005 09:13 PMWashington State needs newer machines to not use don't we? We can't be a backwards state with old worn out machines not in use.
Otherwise, we might be accused of a careless and sloppy attitude towards our citizens' elective franchise.
Please be sensible.