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More Than 7 Million Voter Registrations Are Duplicated in Multiple States

New study finds 7.2 million individuals possibly registered in two states at the same time

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May 18, 2017

More than 7 million voter registrations appear to be registered in two states simultaneously, according to data obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The new voter data was gathered from the Kansas-run interstate voter registration crosscheck program, which is used to identify "possible duplicate registrations among states."

The program began in December 2005 and conducted its first crosscheck in 2006. It is administered by the office of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who was tapped recently to help lead President Trump's voter fraud commission.

The newest data is from crosschecks of voter registrations across 28 states that participate in the program. At least 7.2 million registrations appeared in two states at once, according to the data.

Georgia (660,708), North Carolina (561,811), and Illinois (542,065) lead the 28 states studied in potential duplicated voter registrations across state lines.

The study shows that more than 916,000 people appear to be registered multiple times within their state of residence. North Carolina accounts for 90 percent of potential intrastate duplicates.

Nearly 68,000 registered voters across the 28 states had "invalid" dates of birth, a category that include missing, incomplete, or placeholder birth dates, which can reflect older records before dates of birth were kept on file.

The program also found 32,000 registered voters who appeared to have invalid Social Security Numbers tied to their voter records, which can result either from clerical mistakes or fraud.

The new data remains virtually unchanged from a 2014 study conducted by the secretary of state's office, when 7.3 million voters were registered in more than one state.

President Trump signed an executive order on May 11 establishing a commission to investigate voter fraud in the United States that will be led by Vice President Mike Pence and Kobach.

The commission, which will study "vulnerabilities" in the voting system and look at voter suppression and fraud in terms of registration and actual voting, will meet for the first time this summer and present its findings in 2018.

Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a group that litigates to protect election integrity, said the most recent data from the Kansas interstate crosscheck program serves as a foundation for the commission.

"This is foundational data the Trump election integrity commission needs to assess how well voter rolls are being maintained for a society that is increasingly mobile," Churchwell told the Washington Free Beacon. "Academics and activists attacking this commission are accessories to fraud and mismanagement of voter rolls."

Published under: Voter Fraud