America’s voter rolls are cluttered with duplicate registrations, a glaring flaw that’s cheap to fix yet sparking fierce debate. The problem is evident nationwide and demands immediate attention.
Duplicate registrations span the nation
Rashawn Slade in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, appears on seven separate rolls, a case easily uncovered by sorting by name and address. The duplication was discovered without any new technology, just a simple sort.
When a name, birthday and address match, election officials know a duplicate exists, but minor variations — middle initials, suffixes, transposed birthdates — create false duplicates. These inconsistencies arise from differing entry formats across jurisdictions.
PILF has identified thousands of such duplicates in Maine, Ohio, Iowa, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, Michigan and Alaska. The list shows the problem is nationwide, not isolated.
Technical flaws fuel the problem
States such as California, New York and South Texas generate more duplicates because non‑English names often include accents, tildes or diacritics that databases ignore. The mismatch occurs when registration forms fail to normalize Unicode characters.
Voter databases frequently fail to process accented characters, causing registrations that look identical to the system to be recorded twice. Consequently, two seemingly distinct entries can represent the same voter.
Even a single space can split a name — “McDougal” versus “Mc Dougal” — and trigger a new entry in any state. Such spacing errors are common in manual data entry.
Courts and public access hinder fixes
South Carolina and Utah have sued to block expert access to their voter rolls, preventing independent review of duplicate data. Their legal challenge threatens transparency and effective remediation.
Congress mandated public voter‑maintenance records in the 1993 Motor Voter Act, yet many states resist compliance. The lack of openness undermines efforts to clean the rolls.
Automatic mail‑ballot systems amplify the issue; a voter with multiple registrations could receive several ballots, as happened with Slade’s seven registrations in Pennsylvania. This risk multiplies the potential for voter confusion and fraud.
Simple solutions exist
Sorting rolls by name and address quickly reveals duplicates; correcting them requires no costly technology, only diligent data hygiene. Such a process can be implemented with existing staff and software.
Officials should deny registration only when they can prove with certainty that an applicant already exists on the roll, a standard that avoids partisan gridlock. Clear thresholds prevent arbitrary denials while ensuring accuracy.
Fixing duplicate registrations prevents multiple ballots from reaching one voter, a non‑partisan improvement that all Americans can support. The remedy is straightforward and benefits every citizen.
J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation and former Justice Department attorney, says the evidence is clear and the remedy straightforward. He urges election officials to act now.
