Can You Be Registered To Vote In More Than One State

It's not merely Trump'south administration: Thanks to voting rights protections and federalism, many Americans are registered in more than 1 state—whether they know it or non.

By Jack Denton

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

With a fiery tweet Midweek morning time, President Donald Trump reignited his crusade against the specter of voter fraud he believes to be 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-effect—researchshowsthatvoterfraudalmostneveroccurs—Trump's focus on double registration became especially curious after reporters discovered that members of his administration 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'south nominee for secretary of the treasury; White Firm advisor (and Trump'due south son-in-law) Jared Kushner; and First Girl Tiffany Trump were also all registered to vote in ii states, as CNN, the Washington Mail, and Heatstreet reported, respectively.

The national press took justifiable pleasure in pointing out the hypocrisy of Trump's investigation plans, but confusion about duplicate registrations is understandable. While voting in multiple jurisdictions or precincts in the same election is illegal, being registered in multiple states is non. In fact, across the United States, having multiple voter registrations is adequately common. A 2012 study conducted by the Pew Heart constitute that at least 2.75 one thousand thousand people were registered to vote in more than one state, likely the result of moving from one state to another. But why do these outdated registrations persist when someone moves to a new country and becomes registered to vote in that location?

Bannon reportedly sent a letter to the Sarasota County elections supervisor in Nov, request to be removed from the state'south voter rolls, merely was not removed until his registration status became a national media story this calendar week. As Bannon'due south saga illustrates, voting rights protections and the non-coordination of state elections regime conspire to make it difficult to ensure that a person is registered in but one state post-obit a move across state lines.

A 2012 report conducted by the Pew Eye found that at least 2.75 million people were registered to vote in more than one state.

This is partly considering 1993'due south National Voter Registration Human activity, which codification many of the practices of voter roll maintenance, left the practice almost entirely upwardly to the states. The Help America Vote Human activity, passed in 2002 in an attempt to set some of the voting problems (both real and imagined) of the 2000 election, required states to keep centralized voter registration databases, but did not mandate inter-state 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 as well mandates that states remove people who take died or moved from their voter rolls. The legislation provided nebulous guidelines for this "voter purge" procedure, notwithstanding, and subsequentupdates to the guidelines have non clarified much. A 2005 Election Aid Commission written report recommended that states "coordinate with relevant federal databases, such as the U.Due south. Mail service 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 y'all register to vote in a new location, y'all'll exist asked for your previous address. Your new election office will transport a cancellation form to your previous election function."

However, it appears that virtually states comport out neither of these practices consistently, if at all. Voter purge processes are largely under the purview of local and land election boards, whose methods vary widely. In 2016, for case, the New York City Board of Elections came under burn later on over more than 117,000 voters were purged from Brooklyn's rolls without discover.

Voter purges ofttimes disproportionately impact minorities and the immature; the curl maintenance process is, as described by the Brennan Center, "shrouded in secrecy, decumbent to error, and vulnerable to manipulation."Every bit WNYC reported, for example, the Brooklyn purge removed Hispanic voters at a much higher rate than voters in other demographic groups. Political parties sometimes engage in "voter caging," sending mail to a targeted groups of constituents, and using the letters returned every bit undeliverable to try to disenfranchise voters who are likely to exist 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 duplicate registrations are a necessary consequence of regulations that provide safeguards confronting voter suppression. And, inarguably, there's no reason for Trump to fret over indistinguishable registrations anywhere, whether past members of his assistants, his family, or Hillary Clinton voters in New York and California.