Fairfax County Working to Remove More Than 1,000 Deceased from Voter Rolls
State Board of Elections identified more than 10,000 deceased on state's voter rolls.
Photos
When the State Board of Elections recently identified more than 10,000 deceased voters on state rolls, more than 10 percent of those were from Fairfax County, according to Cameron Quinn, the county's chief elections officer.
In all, the state identified 1,038 dead voters on Fairfax County voting rolls, Quinn told Patch Thursday.
The county is continually working to remove deceased voters from the rolls, she said. Since Jan. 1, the county removed 2,812 deceased voters from the rolls, Quinn said.
On a monthly or so basis, the State Board of Elections sends the county what appear to be deceased voters based on a state level match of the Virginia Department of Health’s Division of Vital Statistics’ list and the voter registration list, according to Quinn, "which we then investigate and remove."
"We always send a letter regarding the cancellation, just in case there is an error in what was provided us," she said. "Also, if on Election Day we get a spouse reporting a death, and they attest to it on a form we provide the polling place, we will also remove based on that attestation."
Of those 2,812 removed by the county so far this year, some of those — about 100 — were among the 1,038 batch of deceased voters recently identified by the state board, she said. They are now reviewing and processing that list as well.
"We have not finished and gone through and taken them all off yet," she said. "We don't just hit a button and 'poof' they're all gone."
The State Board of Elections' latest list of 10,000 came about when they compared a list of deceased from the Social Security Administration's death master file against voting rolls in Virginia.
Local registrars across the state are now in the process of removing the names they received from the state board.
Secretary of the State Board of Elections Don Palmer was encouraged by these efforts: “Virginia is committed to ensuring only eligible voters are registered to vote. The State Board of Elections’ efforts in utilizing the death master file has yielded significant results with the identification of over 10,000 deceased individuals contained in the voter rolls. Virginia will continue to work to ensure those deceased or ineligible to vote are removed timely from the voter rolls.”
The general election is Nov. 6.
Phil Selz
11:53 pm on Thursday, August 9, 2012
The only important question from this is how many deceased voters cast a vote. If it's zero, then the issue is simply a matter of administrative paperwork clean-up. If, however, any deceased voters voted, then we've got a fraud issue. Are there any statistics about votes cast by deceased voters? I didn't see anything in this article about that.
Mary Ann Barton
12:00 am on Friday, August 10, 2012
Hi Phil, No fraud. Just a story about the state and local jurisdictions cleaning up their voting rolls before the election.
Phil Selz
1:02 pm on Friday, August 10, 2012
Thanks.
I think it's important to point that out in the article because too many readers (and certainly commentators with an agenda) will translate "1,038 dead voters on Fairfax County voter rolls" into "1,038 dead people voted."
John Farrell
6:54 am on Saturday, August 11, 2012
There are 1.1 million people in Fairfax and 715,000 voters. For there to be 900+ recently deceased persons on the voting rolls is not remarkable or newsworthy. It's 0.000818 percent of the population and 0.0001258 percent of the registered voters.
Why would such a mundane event warrant a Patch story?
Oh, I see. SBE issued a press release, therefore, it must be important.
The State Board of Elections is a partisan operation controlled by the Governor's party. The narrative of that crowd is that voter fraud is rampant (when, in fact, it's nonexistent) and extraordinary steps must be taken to prevent it.
Actually, that bunch is attempting to engage in voter suppression and passed 8 laws this past session advancing that agenda because they know that if every eligible citizen votes, they lose.
You're being played Ms. Barton.
Glenn Baker
9:29 am on Saturday, August 11, 2012
What?!?!? If I die, someone is going to take away my voting rights!!I demand an expensive task force investigation on the "Abusive voting rights infringement of voters that are "livingly-challenged". I figure what little (if any) voter fraud going on around here is less of a problem than the fact that voter turn out is still pretty pathetic even during presidential elections.
More smoke screen and distraction tactics, how about some discussion of how the government can do their duty and protect Americans from the greedy practices that have killed our stock market (And 401K plans) now and going forward, the fact that virtually NO bankers have been held to task for their policies of reckless greed and risk just proves we have the best congress money can buy regardless of the side of the aisle you are on