[RP TownTalk] Election Results

Fri May 11 22:39:22 UTC 2007

Dear town talkers,

Some comments on town elections.

First, Election District 19-1 is the County district that votes at Riverdale
Elementary and includes all of the town except Madison Hill and the priests
at St. Bernard's.

It would be interesting to ask the county for the total number of registered
voters in 19-1 and then for the turn-out in the 2004 and 2006 general
elections. See how this turn-out compares to the municipal turn-out.

Second, the federal motor-voter law also changed the time to remove a person
from the voter rolls.  it takes two presidential election cycles to remove a
name. So, it could be as little as five and and as many as eight years.  As
Roland wrote, when the Board of Elections send out the registration cards
prior to an election, if the Postal Service can't deliver the card, they are
supposed to return it to the Board and not forward it.

The Board is supposed to enter all returned cards into the system and change
the person's status from active to suspended.  The name still appears on the
list but the code is changed.     After the second presidential election has
occurred, the name is to be removed.

Also, the Board of Elections is supposed to receive copies of all death
certificates issued in the County, so the names can be purged.  It does not
always happen.

When I ran for Ward 5 each time, I would order a voter's list in January.
There might be as many as 250 names on the list.  As many as 80 to 100 names
would be coded as suspended, I would then send a first class letter to each
listed "active' voter.  The envelope was labeled as "DO NOT FORWARD- ADDRESS
CORRECTION REQUESTED"  This would bring me between 30 and 40 undeliverable
envelopes..  I would then delete these from my walking list.  Remember that
Ward 5 has approximately 350 apartments in it.  Even with this cleaned-up
list, I would go to a door and the listed person was no longer there.  So,
maybe there are 100 eligible voters in the ward at any one time.  Turn-out
was usually in the 20% range.

Gerry Kiernan
Ward 5 Councilmember

> From: "Roland Walker" <walker at pobox.com>
> Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 17:35:06 -0400
> To: TownTalk <towntalk at riverdale-park.org>
> Subject: Re: [RP TownTalk] Election Results
> 
> There really is no way for people in town to clean up the county
> rolls, besides returning the mail as Lou described.
> 
> Any returned mail will cause the county to mark the voter as Inactive,
> though they will still be present on the rolls.  After a certain time,
> Inactive voters are purged.
> 
> Unfortunately the great majority of defunct records are not marked
> Inactive in the county database.  In addition, a number of voters are
> marked Inactive are actually present in town.  Also, the county
> sometimes goes so far as to mistakenly purge voters who still reside
> here.  I can think of one person this happened to who is probably on
> this list.
> 
> On the bright side, while 30-40% of the rolls are junk, I can tell you
> as a sometime election observer and election judge that those defunct
> records are not used for fraudulent voting -- not on any large scale.
> 
> If you want to do a voter registration drive, the best way would be to
> volunteer with someone's campaign for office.  I do it every time
> around.
> 
> R
> 
> On 5/11/07, sheila <herb4u at verizon.net> wrote:
>> No specific comment, but a question.  How does one organize a voter
>> registration drive in a town?  Is it done?  Would that be a method for
>> cleaning up the rolls?
>> 
>> Sheila Smith
>> Riverdale Road
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The
>> Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good
>> intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean
>> to govern. They promise to be good masters ... but they mean to be masters.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Daniel Webster
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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