Empire State Today

More than 3 million voter registrations on the New York state rolls are missing personal identifiable information (PII) required by federal law, a research brief by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) shows.

“Missing PII makes it extremely difficult for New York election officials to verify when people have died or moved,” a PILF statement announcing the findings said. “This missing information makes it nearly impossible to have effective voter list maintenance.”

PII consists of Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers required under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. HAVA prohibits a state from accepting a voter registration without it.

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-New Hartford), founder and co-chair of the Election Integrity Caucus in Congress, wrote Assistant Attorney General Kristin Clarke on Oct. 6 asking her to enforce the section in HAVA that requires PII.

“Collecting PII from registrants is a critical practice for voter roll maintenance,” Tenney wrote. “PII allows states to verify the identity of any given registrant. It also ensures states can accurately maintain voter rolls when individuals file duplicate registrations, move to different states, or pass away. Without PII matching one John or Jane Doe to another is an incredibly difficult task that could lead to ineligible voters remaining on the rolls, voters registering in multiple states, or a voter receiving more than one opportunity to vote in a given election.”

Steve Hansen, spokesman for Tenney, told Empire State Today that they asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) for a response by Oct. 20.  

“As far as plans for further action, we will have to wait and see what the DOJ says in response to Rep. Tenney’s letter, but the Congresswoman is adamant that this important law should be enforced,” he said.

Hansen added that they are going to follow up with the New York State Board of Elections as well.

“However, the DOJ is responsible for ensuring federal law is followed, which is why the original letter went to them,” he said.

Neither Clarke’s office nor the State Board of Elections returned a request from Empire State Today for comment on why PII was missing from so many registrations, and how they planned to correct it.

The PILF research showed missing information is not the result of an outdated administrative procedure. From January 2019 to December 2020, 22,546 registrants with missing PII were added to the roll from January 2019 to December 2020. Another 21,062 were added in the current year.

Elections in New York will be affected until the information is added to the registrations, the brief said.

“With the growing use of mail ballot voting, states like Florida and others are pursuing new ways of leveraging PII to better protect the integrity of mail ballots,” the brief said. “New York is significantly disadvantaged in trying to emulate these emerging best practices with significant amounts of missing data.”