Reflections on Removing 1,707 Invalid Names off the DC Voter Rolls

As a candidate in DC who needs to collect signatures for ballot access, I’ve experienced visiting the home of a registered republican scores of times, only to discover that the voter doesn’t live there. So I requested that the DC Board of Elections remove 2,637 names of people who don’t live where they are registered. Here is the poorly-edited email that I sent them:

Their response:

Further analysis from the voters who live on my block in Fairlawn:

35% (14/39) of the voters shouldn’t be there. Thankfully, only 1 is voting (the sister of an owner). DC BOE didn’t claim to remove any of the names from my block.

20% (8/39) are renters who are no longer there.

10% (4/39)of the voters on my block were allowed by the owners to borrow their address, probably for employment/benefit reasons. 

5% (2/39) are owners who remain on the rolls after they moved out of the District.


Takeaways:

-DC BOE removed 1,707 of the 2,637 names and replied with a thorough email, which I appreciate.

-Apparently, I need to have an affidavit for all the people who are still registered to vote in my neighborhood but don’t live there.

-Since 2018, the voters who I challenged voted on election day 310 times, voted early 226 times, unsuccessfully attempted to vote 495 times, and voted absentee 471 times. A rough calculation can be made that shows these voters, mostly residing at homelessness support agencies, voted 1.3% of the time.

-Although these names were not in my spreadsheet, there are over 200 duplicates of names on the voter rolls which I intend to challenge before the general election. A small percentage of these are fathers and sons who share a name. One of the duplicates is from a recently-registered non-citizen.

-The Sufi Order has a communal house in NW DC with an 90% participation rate in absentee voting, which is an anomaly. I didn’t challenge any of their names this time.

-The strangest shared residence was the 2512 Virginia AVE NW #58097 for 179 voters. This is a Watergate Hotel Post Office Box.

-If the 35% of voters who don’t live on my block is representative of DC, that means that 35% of the voters of DC aren’t valid. Maybe some of the voters live elsewhere in the District, but it’s still concerning with implications on voter turnout (it’s higher) and fraud (more opportunities).

-Most of the voter roll integrity issues would go away if we required voter ID, voting in-person, and ceased sending ballots to every registered voter.

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