A year ago this time I sued the Secretary of State to obtain voter birthdates. The suit was unsuccessful, but the legislature subsequently rewrote the statute to require the disclosure of voter birthdates. The new statewide voter database includes birthdates. Birthdate is a required element for voter registration, but not all birthdates in the statewide voter database are plausible.
Among the more interesting findings -- 1,120 registered voters have birthdates after 11/8/1987, the cutoff for voting in November 2005. Nevertheless, 35 of these people actually voted in the November 2005 election and at least 43 of them voted in earlier elections, some as early as 1992.
Furthermore, we have one voter who is recorded as having been born a year ago next Thursday, February 9, 2005 (I've heard of people pre-registering for school as infants, but not for voting). There is also one voter born on April 30, 4983 and another born on November 1, 9600. (not clear if this was supposed to be A.D. or B.C.). On the other end of the calendar, we have 2,295 people born on January 1, 1900, 409 voters born on January 1, 1800, 18 on January 1, 1801, 8 on January 1, 1851 and 142 others born in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. There are 15 people who voted in November 2005 and at least 12 people who voted in November 2004 who have birthdates before 1890, making them older than the oldest person in the world.
UPDATE: 994 are listed as having registered to vote before they were born!
UPDATE 2: Of the 2,295 supposedly born on January 1, 1900 -- 1,933 are in King County (among these are one of my neighbors who doesn't look a day older than 55). Pierce County has nearly half of the voters born during the Adams Administration.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 02, 2006 05:05 PM | Email ThisWhen my simple computer can do this type of thing, the Secretary of State's should be able to also.
Posted by: Michael on February 2, 2006 05:24 PMAre you suggesting that we deny the dearly departed the right to vote?
Shame on you!
The simplest way to validate the DOB, date of birth, is to compare the SoS's statewide database to the Department of Licensing Driver's License database. My hunch is one would find additional birthdate errors in the SoS database.
After the SoS database is "scrubbed" against the DOL database, it can be "scrubbed" against the USPS database of valid adddresses.
Now with a cleaner database, we can examine the anomalies for individuals who are less than 18 years old and the ones who are greater than 100 years old.
Stefan could probably do this in a week. The SoS's office will take 60 days. King County might get it down before Hailey's Comet returns the later half of this century.
Posted by: Green Lake Mark on February 2, 2006 06:06 PMOh, never mind - I think I know the answer to my naive questions.
Keep up the good work, Stefan!
Posted by: Mac on February 2, 2006 07:11 PMRon Sims
Posted by: Ron Sims on February 2, 2006 07:36 PMI just sent in my voter registration (I'll be eighteen in a month), and I sure hope I put the right dates down. I know that when I'm supposed to put my birthdate down on some forms, I accidentally end up putting the right month and day, but then put down the current year instead of my birth year. That could be an explanation for some of those seeming toddler-age voters. But I did fill out the form twice because I wrote in my birthday instead of the current date next to my signature--so I ended up printing out a new form, which was probably a very good thing.
But those dates from the nineteenth century--that is very interesting.
Posted by: Cydney on February 2, 2006 09:07 PMWill be interesting to see what meat comes from this carcass.
Sam Reed, remember, find another job in '09.
Hardly a whiff of excellence. Not perfection, excellence.
Posted by: Col. Hogan on February 3, 2006 08:31 AMRCW 29A.08.605 requires the county auditor (and now SoS) to maintain the list at least every two years. In an electronic database, it is very simple to find invalid/potentially invalid dates. (This section looks more like an address fix section, though)
RCW 29A.08.610 specifically requires date of birth to be used in determining if there are double voters or registrations. If the birth dates are clearly invalid, how would a county ever comply with this law?
Posted by: SouthernRoots on February 3, 2006 09:27 AMDoes anyone who knows anything about databases expect anything more? Decades of slack voter registration oversight plus electronic databases equals what?
Posted by: Deadwood on February 3, 2006 09:36 AMAs with most things done, Garbage in, garbage out. Stephen's discover points out this problem. The Sec of State was suppose to construct and help clean up the problem. He has taken a minimalist approach and means more of the same garbage. His press released announced data base is just providing an illusion that things have been fixed. Soon everyone will understand that the problem has not been fixed and we will be approaching a major set of State and federal elections.
If state resources are not quickly devoted to solving the problem, people will become even more skeptical of government and elected official will not be viewed as legitimate by the public.
If Sam Reed doesn't show substantial progress on this, I feel that there is a need for vigilanteeism. When Government refuses to enforce the basic necessities of a free democratic country, it is up to the people to take matters into their own hands.
I applaud Stephen for what he is doing.
Sign me, "On with the Orange Revolution!"
Posted by: On with the Orange Revolution on February 3, 2006 12:00 PMThanks, Bob Higley,
Lobbyist for Faith and Freedom Northwest
(formerly WERG)if that matters.
Bob
Posted by: Bob Higley on February 6, 2006 07:22 PM