What If I Am Registered To Vote In Two States

It's non just Trump'southward administration: Thanks to voting rights protections and federalism, many Americans are registered in more than one state—whether they know it or not.

By Jack Denton

(Photo: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP/Getty Images)

With a fiery tweet Wednesday morning time, President Donald Trump reignited his crusade against the specter of voter fraud he believes to exist haunting our electoral system. Promising a "major investigation into VOTER FRAUD," Trump focused his ire on those who are registered to vote in multiple states.

Beyond the wastefulness of an investigation into a non-upshot—researchshowsthatvoterfraudalmostneveroccurs—Trump's focus on double registration became especially curious after reporters discovered that members of his assistants and family are registered to vote in two states. First, a reporter at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune uncovered that Stephen Bannon, senior adviser to the president, was registered to vote in both Florida and New York.

Steven Mnuchin, Trump's nominee for secretarial assistant of the treasury; White Business firm advisor (and Trump's son-in-law) Jared Kushner; and Outset Girl Tiffany Trump were likewise all registered to vote in ii states, every bit CNN, the Washington Mail service, and Heatstreet reported, respectively.

The national press took justifiable pleasure in pointing out the hypocrisy of Trump's investigation plans, just defoliation well-nigh duplicate registrations is understandable. While voting in multiple jurisdictions or precincts in the same election is illegal, being registered in multiple states is not. In fact, across the U.s.a., having multiple voter registrations is fairly common. A 2012 report conducted past the Pew Center institute that at least 2.75 million people were registered to vote in more than 1 country, likely the result of moving from one state to some other. But why do these outdated registrations persist when someone moves to a new land and becomes registered to vote there?

Bannon reportedly sent a letter of the alphabet to the Sarasota County elections supervisor in November, asking to be removed from the state'due south voter rolls, but was not removed until his registration status became a national media story this calendar week. As Bannon's saga illustrates, voting rights protections and the non-coordination of state elections authorities conspire to make information technology difficult to ensure that a person is registered in simply ane land post-obit a move across state lines.

A 2012 study conducted by the Pew Heart found that at to the lowest degree 2.75 million people were registered to vote in more than one state.

This is partly because 1993's National Voter Registration Act, which codification many of the practices of voter roll maintenance, left the do almost entirely upwards to the states. The Help America Vote Act, passed in 2002 in an attempt to fix some of the voting issues (both real and imagined) of the 2000 ballot, required states to keep centralized voter registration databases, merely did non mandate inter-country sharing. The federal government still does not maintain any national voter registration database, and few states cross-reference their voter rolls to avoid duplication. Political consulting firms (and hackers) may be the simply ones to aggregate nationwide voter registration information.

The NVRA also mandates that states remove people who have died or moved from their voter rolls. The legislation provided nebulous guidelines for this "voter purge" procedure, however, and subsequentupdates to the guidelines take non antiseptic much. A 2005 Election Assistance Commission written report recommended that states "coordinate with relevant federal databases, such equally the U.S. Mail National Change of Address and Social Security Death Index databases," when maintaining voter rolls, and the federal government'south voting help website claims that, "when you register to vote in a new location, you'll be asked for your previous address. Your new election part will send a counterfoil course to your previous ballot function."

Notwithstanding, it appears that most states carry out neither of these practices consistently, if at all. Voter purge processes are largely nether the purview of local and state election boards, whose methods vary widely. In 2016, for instance, the New York City Board of Elections came under burn after over more than 117,000 voters were purged from Brooklyn'southward rolls without detect.

Voter purges frequently disproportionately affect minorities and the young; the curl maintenance process is, as described by the Brennan Center, "shrouded in secrecy, decumbent to fault, and vulnerable to manipulation."As WNYC reported, for example, the Brooklyn purge removed Hispanic voters at a much college rate than voters in other demographic groups. Political parties sometimes appoint in "voter caging," sending mail service to a targeted groups of constituents, and using the letters returned as undeliverable to effort to disenfranchise voters who are likely to be unfavorable to their candidate or party. In 2008, lawsuits in Michigan and Colorado ruled that massive voter caging efforts were a violation of the NVRA requirements.

Implemented advisedly, a more than explicit and nationally unified system of voter registration and purge guidelines could help prevent both voter suppression and indistinguishable registrations. However, many of the indistinguishable registrations are a necessary consequence of regulations that provide safeguards against voter suppression. And, inarguably, there's no reason for Trump to fret over duplicate registrations anywhere, whether by members of his administration, his family, or Hillary Clinton voters in New York and California.