Thanks to all the readers who have been sending me tips about Bogus Voting Residences. I'll be posting these. Today I'll take a break to bring you some Bogus Voting Birthdates. Thanks to another reader tip, it turns out that there is an unusual number of people whose voter registration gives a birthday of January 1. (and this is in addition to the 2,704 voters who have a birthday of January 1, 1900 or 1800 which are sloppy "null" values). Weirdest of all, these January 1 birthdates are unusually prevalent among King County voters with the following last names associated with particular ethnic communities (mostly Eastern African and Middle Eastern):
| ABDI ABDULLE ADAN ADEN AHMED ALI EGAL ELMI FARAH | HAGOS HASHI HASSAN HIRSI HUSSEIN IBRAHIM JAMA KASSA | MOHAMED MOHAMMED MOHAMUD MUSE OMAR OSMAN WARSAME YUSUF |
Search the online voter database and see for yourself. To put this in perspective --
... the statewide voter database lists 1,187,520 registrations in King County, of which 4,145 (0.35%) have a Jan. 1 birthday after 1900. There are a total of 968 registered voters with the above last names in King County and 368 (38%) of them list Jan. 1 birthdates. Even though these names account for only 0.08% of the county's registered voters, they account for 9% of the voters with Jan. 1 birthdays. I got the above list of names through a neutral query, looking for all last names that have 10 or more registered voters, and 3 or more of whom have Jan. 1 birthdays, and ranking the responses by % of voters having Jan. 1 birthday. Those names came out on top, with each having 15% or more with Jan. 1 birthdays. The winner by percentage is WARSAME, where 11 of the 14 with that last name claim a Jan. 1 birthday. Next in rank on the list are the following last names, with roughly 3%-4% of voters claiming a Jan. 1 birthdate:
DANG
HA
HUYNH
LUU
PHAN
TONG
TRUONG
By way of comparison, the most common last name among King County voters is JOHNSON. Only 22 of the 9,286 Johnsons registered in King County (0.23%) have a Jan. 1 birthdate (excluding the Jan. 1, 1900). So something is definitely different about the Jan. 1 registrations for the 25 East African/Middle Eastern names above. It's possible that some of this is caused by cultural differences or poor recordkeeping in countries of origin, where people don't necessarily know their exact birthdates as we tend to do in the west.
But I hypothesize an additional explanation -- roughly half of the people with the above 25 names were registered in 2004 and 2005, but more than 2/3 of those with the Jan. 1 birthdates were registered in 2004 and 2005. Half of all the people with those names who registered in 2004 and 2005 list Jan. 1 birthdays, while 22% of those who registered before 2004 have Jan. 1 birthdays. That suggests to me the possibility that massive voter registration drives targeting certain communities in 2004 (which have been reported here, here and elsewhere) did not do a very careful job of providing accurate information on registration forms. Likewise, the King County voter registration operation which was notororiously sloppy in 2004, may well have knowingly accepted large numbers of flawed registrations. E.g. it wouldn't surprise me if the registration forms listed only a birth year, but not a birthdate. We would know more if we could examine the original voter registration forms. Unfortunately, these are exempt from disclosure, so it would take some government agency like the Secretary of State or U.S. Attorney to investigate King County Elections. And we all know that isn't likely to happen.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 15, 2006 11:55 AM | Email ThisWill someone please take at the trash at KCE.
Posted by: JCM on February 15, 2006 12:09 PMDems will scream disenfranchisment, but hundreds of illegal votes tainted the 2004 election and disenfranchised us all. Isn't it about time to acknowledge the problems, clean up the database and get back to elections of which we can be proud?
I'm guessing the answer is yes, unless you are a Democrat and stand to benefit from "not fixing" what "isn't broke," i.e. a system which rewards fraud.
Posted by: Jeff B. on February 15, 2006 12:18 PMMine!
Posted by: Doug on February 15, 2006 12:23 PMNot wierd at all, just know the history. Many refugees from East Africa are given January 1st birthdays because they do not know thier real birthdays. Groups such as the so called "lost boys" group who were seperated from thier parents before then sending 5 to 10 years in the UN camps before the US agreed to take them are a good example.
You could argue that these people may not necessarily be over 18 yet but they were given medical exams to take a best shot at getting a possible age when they were let into the country and most were later granted citizen ship.
Posted by: Chokai on February 15, 2006 12:32 PMhttp://strategicvision.biz/political/washington_poll_021506.htm
Mostly good news in there.
Posted by: Jim in Clark Co. on February 15, 2006 12:52 PMI once tutored a Somali boy (last name Mohamed). His mother and family had no idea when his birthday was--or any of his siblings for that matter. In fact, they didn't start celebrating birthdays until they arrived in America--at which point they simply picked dates.
Though this situation can provide an avenue for fraud, I think in many cases the 1/1 thing is the result of a bureaucrat trying to get someone through a form.
January is going to be hell for the DMV.
Posted by: ChrisW on February 15, 2006 01:48 PMclick on her name and check out the website you end up at... it just drips with the arrogance and elitism of the left. But it IS good for a laugh.
Posted by: libertarianobserver on February 15, 2006 02:01 PMChokai had an interesting observation, but there seems to be too many of same to occur during the 2004 and 2005 political season to be all legitimate.
The US don't make that many people citizens overnight, though they do give a lot of motor vehicle licenses out.
Posted by: swatter on February 15, 2006 02:16 PM"Democracy is not about trust; it is about distrust. It is about accountability, exposure, open debate, critical challenge, and popular input and feedback from the citizenry. It is about responsible government. We have to get our fellow Americans to trust their leaders less and themselves more, trust their own questions and suspicions, and their own desire to know what is going on." - Michael Parenti
Isn't this the whole point of the KCE/voter registration controversy, and Stefan's efforts to correct the problems?
"Paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people..." - Hugo Black, Supreme Court Justice
Posted by: Patrick on February 15, 2006 02:25 PM"The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors." - Thomas Jefferson
Posted by: Patrick on February 15, 2006 02:27 PMSince the MSM in Seattle isn't reporting any of this (so much for "investigative" journalism) isn't it time for the republican party or even interested individuals to do something about this?
A radio or newspaper campaign laying out the facts could have a real impact on the election process this time around, and money spent would probably be a lot more impactful than the same amount given to independent republican candidates.
We've seen that it changes nothing when we yell "fraud" after the election. Isn't it time we educated the broader base of public voters before an election?
Posted by: Johnny on February 16, 2006 01:43 PM
I work with 5 people from Sudan. At least two of the 5 have the birthdate on their driver's license as Jan. 1. One of them explained it was because they had no proof of their birthdate when they entered the country or became citizens.
And while Sudanese and Somali certainly have good reason for not being able to prove birth dates, it seems improbable that this could explain these findings. Even if 100% of those immigrants had been assigned Jan 1 birth dates on entry, they would have to constitute fully half of all persons with those surnames. But the surnames are common throughout the Middle East and among Islamic converts of American birth. Not likely.
Posted by: Ann J on February 19, 2006 12:33 PM