Help Audit Your County’s Voter Registrations — It’s Easy!

3.5 million registered voters don't actually exist, but many vote nonetheless

There are at least 3.5 million more people on U.S. election rolls than are legally eligible to vote, according to Judicial Watch. In 462 counties, the registration rate even exceeds 100% of the eligible voter population. In some counties, the ratio of registered voters to eligible voter population is as high as 162%.

This is an obvious invitation to voter fraud, particularly when combined with mail-in ballots, and even more so when no signature match is required. This “ghost voter” population is easily large enough to affect the outcome of many elections. So this is not just a theoretical issue.

States and counties are supposed to stay on top of keeping voter rolls current — in fact, they are required to do so by federal law, but as a practical matter they often don’t. The good news is that a little prompting by local citizens can help push that ball across the line, and True the Vote has created an online system to make it easy.

IV3, as it’s called, is a web-based app that “empowers voters with an automated way to confirm accuracy, identify ineligible records, report findings to local authorities, and stay up to date on the recent changes to your local voter rolls.” It’s remarkably simple. You identify your county, the app suggests registrations that are suspicious (e.g., 35 people registered to vote at a Seven-Eleven — no kidding, this happens!), and you determine whether you believe there is probable cause for your county (or local jurisdiction) to be notified for further review.

It often seems like ordinary people are powerless to fix our increasingly broken democracy. This is one critical area where you can still help.