Fears of excess voters deemed as ‘trumped up’

Rhode Island’s size, and the fact that elections here are community-run rather than directed by some large external organization, is one of the best safeguards against voter fraud.

“It’s decentralization, that’s a safeguard,” Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea said Tuesday when asked whether she is fearful of fraud based on Providence Journal stories that state voter rolls have 189,000 more names than they should. This would mean that 31.9 percent of the 784,997 registered voters in 2008 are inactive.

Gorbea called the number based on U.S. Census Bureau information “an estimate.” She noted that the Pew Charitable Foundation elections performance index put the list of inactive voters at 121,000, or 15.3 percent.

It appears the actual number is far less.

Gorbea said the state list of inactive voters numbers 54,000. She said the bulk of these are people who have moved and failed to inform their local board of canvassers. A registered voter is deemed “inactive” after a letter is returned to the board as undeliverable. Only after two federal elections, which happens every two years because of races for the House of Representatives, can those inactive names be purged from the rolls.

But that doesn’t mean everything is put on hold. The Board of Elections is linked in with the Health Department and vital statistics so that the names of deceased are removed from the rolls. In Warwick, Dottie McCarthy of the Board of Canvassers said the board tracks obituaries and flags names to be removed. She put the Warwick list of inactive voters at 4,879 out of 64,000 registered voters, or 7.5 percent.

Gorbea also pointed out that Rhode Island is a member of the Electronic Registration System (ERIC), where states share voter registration. The system picks up on address changes.

Another tool that Gorbea has “high hopes for” is online registration, which made its debut in August. The system allows voters to change address information, as well as names in the case of marriages without having to visit an office and complete forms.

With concerns being raised over the volume of registered voters on the rolls and stories about cyber-attacks possibly influencing the integrity of elections – not to mention Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s accusations that the system is rigged – Gorbea met with 15 state political and civic leaders last week to discuss voting equipment security safeguards, the integrity of the state’s central voter registration database, and ways in which Rhode Islanders can report any concerns they have while at the polls.

According to a release, Gorbea addressed the state’s Central Voter Registration System (CVRS), a centralized database where local boards of canvassers maintain voter rolls, and concerns that the voter rolls are not accurate. She also shared how data from U.S. Census estimates vary for Rhode Island’s “voter registration rate,” making it very difficult to pinpoint the exact excess in Rhode Island’s CVRS.

In the interview Tuesday, Gorbea said those attending the meeting left feeling confident in the system and next Tuesday’s election.

“We’re on it,” she said of the inactive list of voters. “Everybody keep calm and vote,” was her advice.

McCarthy thought the numbers of inactive voters had been “sensationalized” by the media.

“If you ask me,” she said, “it’s all trumped up.”