Now that the Voter History List and corresponding list of those who voted in the 11-08-2022 November General election has been released by the VA dept. of elections (“ELECT”), we have compiled and compared the results from the official turnout statistics on the ELECT website (here) to the information contained in both the Daily Absentee List (“DAL”) and Voter History List (“VHL”) information.
These are all “official” datasets provided by ELECT, and they should theoretically all match. However, there are a number of discrepancies in the official records that need to be explained. Performing simple differences between the accumulated totals for each locality exposes these issues. For example:
Why does the official results on the ELECT website show the total number of ballots cast for Albemarle County to be 11,105 less than the number of ballots recorded in the VHL? Why do the DAL file records show 11,429 more cast absentee (Early or Mail) ballots than the ELECT official results in Albemarle County? A: The Albemarle electoral board looked into this matter when we brought it to their attention and they reported that the registrar had made a transcription error and submitted the wrong line when submitting the election results to ELECT. While mistakes do happen, this explanation still begs the question as to why did ELECT not catch or flag these discrepancies, and what procedures are in place to prevent, catch or rectify these issues.
Why does Richmond City show 25,500 more ballots cast in the official turnout results on the ELECT website than are present in the VHL? Why are there 325 more absentee (Early or Mail) ballots in the ELECT website data than the DAL file?
Why is the sum of the absolute value of discrepancies between the VHL and the official results on the ELECT website 69,381?
Why is the sum of the absolute value of discrepancies in absentee ballots (Early or Mail) between the DAL and the official results on the ELECT website 28,515?
Why does the VHL data records contain zero “Election Day” records for Covington City?
… etc
We have notified a number of local electoral board members, registrars and election integrity groups, and postponed publishing this data until after they were able to validate the existence of these discrepancies, in the hopes that they can discover the source of the discrepancies and rectify the issues.
As a further dive into the data, we also computed and noted the following additional issues. Documentation on these specific discrepancies are available upon request by entities that are able to receive and process election data according to VA law and ELECT requirements. We will not publish the details publicly on this blog as they reveal personal voter information, but will give the summary results below. Please contact us for further information.
There were 3,354 records of valid absentee ballots cast recorded in the VHL that did not have corresponding entries (matched by voter ID) in the DAL record.
There were also 19,723 records of valid absentee ballots cast recorded in the DAL that did not have corresponding entries (matched by voter ID) in the VHL record.
The VHL contained 6 records of ballots cast in the VA Nov 2022 election that do not have a corresponding registration record in the Registered Voter List (RVL) dated 11/23/2022.
The VHL contained 93 records of ballots cast in any election that do not have a corresponding registration record in the Registered Voter List (RVL) dated 11/23/2022.
The 11/23/2022 statewide RVL contained 1,197 records that had duplicate records with different voter IDs, based on performing an exact match to first name, middle name, last name, suffix, full date-of-birth, and gender.
Background and Methodology:
The DAL file is supposed to track all of the transactions for the non-election day ballots for a specific election. This includes any Mail-In or Early In-Person ballots. (Any non-election day ballot is considered to be an “absentee” ballot in VA.) It is updated daily throughout the course of the election and is finalized once the election is certified. The VA 2022 election was certified by all of the localities by 11-18-2022. The last version of the DAL file we purchased and obtained from ELECT and used for this analysis was dated 12/13/2022, and it had been unchanged for a number of weeks by that point. We downloaded and archived copies of the DAL file multiple times per day in order to track the changes near-real-time over the course of the election cycle. (The day-to-day changes to the DAL records over time are documented in other blog entries.)
The VHL is updated by election officials after the election has concluded by adding the “voter credit” into VERIS (the state election database) for all registered voters that cast a ballot in the election (either absentee or on election day). The VHL contains information covering the last 4 years of election history for each currently registered voter. As of mid-January we were informed that all of the voter credit updates had been completed in the VERIS database for the 2022 General Election. (Why this isn’t done automatically similar to the DAL file entries and made available before election certification?) The version of the VHL that we purchased and obtained from ELECT and used for this analysis is from 1/26/2023. We specifically tried to time our purchase of the VHL to occur after the voter credit updates had been completed but before the scheduled maintenance process of removing longstanding “inactive” voters had taken place. We note that even if some “Inactive” voters had been removed from the VHL by the time we purchased the VHL, that should not impact this analysis, as the act of voting in the 2022 election would require the voters status to be listed as “Active”.
The “official” turnout report page on the ELECT website (here, again) was downloaded and converted to an excel spreadsheet on 2/4/2023. The notes on the website page is that the information content was last updated on 12/06/2022. (We have archived a pdf copy of the site as we downloaded it for reference attached to the bottom of this post.) All of the local electoral boards had completed their canvass by 11/18/2022 and submitted their information to ELECT, so there is no reason that this information should be missing any data.
The official turnout results from ELECT tabulate the Early Voting, Election Day, By Mail, and Provisional ballots cast and accounted for during the 2022 General Election. The DAL file includes information as to the Mail-In, Early Voting, and Absentee Provisional ballots cast. The VHL contains information as to all voters who cast a ballot in the election, and broken down by Election Day, Absentee (either Early or Mail-In), and Provisionals for each sub-group. Theoretically all of these data files should match exactly.
We note that there is a known issue that could potentially, but rarely, cause the number of ballots reported in the VHL to be strictly less than the number of ballots in the official results reported on the ELECT webpage. Due to the time delay between the close of the election and the update and publication of the VHL, there can be registrants that have been legitimately removed due to death, etc during that interval and their corresponding voting record is also removed when that happens. In the data presented below, this would manifest as a positive (+) discrepancy, but even so, these numbers should be relatively small.
We also again note that we made every effort to purchase the VHL dataset after all of the voter credit information was updated but before the department of elections performed their annual removal of records that had been inactive for more than 2 federal elections. Even so, if the voter was “inactive” and slated for removal, they wouldn’t be showing up in the count of ballots cast anyway. The act of casting a ballot immediately moves a voter into the “active” category.
The official turnout results are collated by locality, so we took the DAL and VHL information and accumulated their tallies to match the official turnout report breakdown. We then subtracted the DAL +/or VHL results from the official results to determine how much of a discrepancy exists between each of the datasets.
Terminology:
delta EV (DAL): This is the change in the Early Vote ballot numbers as calculated by subtracting the DAL “On Machine” ballots from the official turnout report “Early Vote” tally.
delta ByMail (DAL): This is the change in the Mail In ballot numbers as calculated by subtracting the DAL (“Pre-Processed” + “Marked”) ballots from the official turnout report “Mail In” tally.
Net DAL: The net sum of the DAL differences in each locality
Sum Abs Value DAL: The sum of the absolute values of the DAL differences in each locality.
delta ED (VHL): This is the change in Election Day ballot numbers as calculated by subtracting the VHL (“Election Day” AND NOT “Provisional”) ballots from the official turnout report “Election Day” tally.
delta Provisional (VHL): This is the change in Provisional ballot numbers as calculated by subtracting the VHL “Provisional” ballot total from the official turnout report “Provisional” tally.
delta Early or Mail (VHL): This is the change in Early OR Mail-In ballot numbers as calculated by subtracting the VHL (“Absentee” AND NOT “Provisional”) ballots from the official turnout report (“Early Voting” + “Mail In”) tally.
delta Provisional (VHL): This is the change in Provisional ballot numbers as calculated by subtracting the VHL “Provisional” ballots from the official turnout report “Provisional” tally.
Net VHL: The net sum of the VHL differences for each locality
Sum Abs Value VHL: The sum of the absolute values of the VHL differences for each locality
Data Results:
We present the data and results in the following EXCEL spreadsheet. Tab 1 is the ELECT website data with differences between the DAL and VHL data on the right hand side. Tab 2 is the accumulated DAL data by locality. Tab 3 is the accumulated VHL data by locality.
In a previous post I documented the results from an United States Postal Service (USPS) National Change of Address (NCOA) database check with the 2022 Virginia Registered Voter List (RVL) primary address records joined with the Daily Absentee List (DAL) reports of absentee ballots cast. There was a significant public reaction to the fact that over 15K RVL primary addresses associated with voters who cast ballots in the VA 2022 general election were not recognized by the USPS database as valid addresses (among other issues). I reported the data as I found it, but a common commentary was that my analysis did not account for rural voters who do not have a traditional street address, or that do not have mail receptacles and use PO boxes as their primary delivery mechanism.
The requirements for voter registration and primary address are specified by the VA Constitution, Federal and VA law, and require the following:
The VA constitution (Section II-1 and II-2) and the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requires that registered voter primary addresses be an actual physical (and deliverable) street address. The de-facto arbiter of what defines a recognizable and/or deliverable address is the USPS, therefore a street address that is not recognized or is undeliverable according to USPS is not compliant. We should be making every effort to ensure that the primary address associated with each voter is able to be correctly recognized and translated into a deliverable address by the USPS. This may require adjusting VA’s data normalization policies such that input street addresses are correctly mapped to USPS addresses, or a legislative action in order to correct.
There is also the legal restriction that registered VA voters are not allowed to use PO Boxes as their primary registered voter address. There is an exception that “protected” voters are allowed to provide a PO box address to be displayed in public records, but their actual address on file must still be a physical address.
The 2022 VA GREB, section 6..2.3 states that in special cases, a rural voter may supply the name of the highway and enough detail in the comments section of the voter application that the registrar may ascertain where the physical address is. This seems (IMO, but I’m not a lawyer) in contradiction to the language in the VA constitution and in the NVRA that make the implicit requirement of deliverable addresses. Also, if the address as entered is not recognized by the USPS NCOA system, then it will constantly be generating validation errors every time it is checked against the NCOA database, which VA is currently required to do at least annually. Again, this may require adjusting VA’s data normalization policies such that input street addresses are correctly mapped to USPS addresses, or a legislative action in order to correct.
Additionally the USPS is supposed to recognize “Post Box Street Address” (PBSA) locations such that when someone addresses an envelope or package to the street address of a residence that is served only by delivery to a PO box, the USPS should automatically recognize this and adjust accordingly. Per the NCOA documentation, the USPS NCOA database checks are supposed to be doing this detection and translation already.
And again, to be clear, my point is not to accuse anyone of malicious intent or wrongdoing … I am simply trying to point out that the way we are using and managing our data is discrepant with what the requirements actually are. We either need to change the data and our practices to conform to the legal requirements, or change the law to fit how we are actually (and practically) using the data.
That being said, and in order to show that there are still significant data issues even after adjusting for rural routes, etc., I’ve re-run my NCOA analysis to account for records with invalid primary addresses but that had valid mailing addresses, even if those mailing addresses are PO Boxes. Any RVL record with a primary address that was marked invalid by an NCOA check, but had a different mailing address AND that mailing address was returned from a second NCOA check as NOT-invalid (even if it was a PO Box), was replaced with the mailing address listing and NCOA results. While the requirement is still that primary addresses are supposed to be valid, this re-processing and allowing for primary OR mailing addresses to be used is more in line with the way VA has actually implemented its voter registrations across the state … even though that implementation seems to be at odds with the requirements.
The rest of the analysis is performed the same as before, and is presented in the same format for consistency. I have updated the dates and numerical results as appropriate, but have otherwise kept the format and much of the language and layout the same as the previous analysis.
BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):
There were 2,164 ballots cast during early voting in the VA 2022 General Election where the voters’ (primary or mailing) registered address on record were flagged as “Invalid” by a National Change of Address (NCOA) database check. If we include addresses that were identified as 90-day Vacant the total rises to 4,274. (The previous analysis that used only the primary addresses returned 15,419 invalid records with associated ballots, and went up to 17,244 when including addresses flagged as vacant.)
A certified commercial provider of NCOA data verification was used to facilitate this analysis on raw data obtained from the VA Dept of Elections (“ELECT”). It is not technically possible to obtain a truly time-synchronized complete set of data for any election due to the way elections are run in VA, but we made every effort to obtain the data from the state as close in time as was possible. The NCOA database is maintained and curated by the United States Postal Service (USPS).
For those wishing to review specific entries, or to help validate these issues, and who are part of an organization that is able to receive and handle election information according to VA law and the VA Dept of Elections requirements, you may contact us to request the raw data breakdowns. We will need to validate your organization or employment and will make data available as legally allowed.
Commentary and Discussion:
I would like to be very clear: We are simply presenting the data as compiled to facilitate public discourse. We have strived to only utilize data directly obtained from authoritative sources (ELECT, the USPS via TrueNCOA provider).
The designation of “Invalid” addresses is according to the definition by the USPS and TrueNCOA, i.e. the TrueNCOA check has reported the addresses as listed in the RVL have no match in the USPS database. Invalid addresses do not include things like valid P.O. Boxes or valid rural addresses that are automatically recognized and translated by USPS to Post Box Street Address (PBSA) records.
The VA Constitution (Section II-1 and II-2) specify the requirements for voter eligibility to include that voters are required to supply a primary address for their registration record, regardless of their method of voting. VA is required by law to consistently maintain and validate these records. Based on the below analysis, the data shows that there is a small but statistically significant number of “Invalid” addresses associated for voters who cast ballots in the Nov 2022 election.
Continuing EPEC’s mission to promote voter participation, analyze election technology, and educate the public about best practices in managing election technology systems; we are providing the below analysis in order to educate and inform the public, legislators and elections officials about the existence of these discrepancies.
Details:
After receiving the results of a National Change of Address (NCOA) database check on the registration (not the temporary) addresses in the latest VA Registered Voter List (RVL). I’ve gone through and collated the flagged addresses and reconciled them with the entries in the Daily Absentee List (DAL) file records provided by the VA Dept. of Elections (“ELECT”).
The DAL file (dated 2022-12-13) provides a records of all of the voters that cast absentee (either Early In-Person or Mail-In) ballots in the election, and the RVL (dated 2022-11-23) gives all of the registered voter addresses and other pertinent information. Both datasets come directly from the VA Dept. of Elections and must be purchased. Total cost was ~$7000. The two datasets can be tied together using the voter Identification Number that is assigned to each (supposedly) unique voter by the state. Entries in the RVL should be unique to each registered voter (although there are a small number of duplicate voter IDs that I have seen … but thats for another post), whereas the DAL file can have multiple entries attributed to a single voter recording the various stages of ballot processing.
The NCOA check was performed on all addresses in the RVL file in order to detect recent moves, invalid addresses, vacant addresses, P.O. Boxes, commercial addresses, etc. The NCOA check takes multiple days to run using a commercial service provider and was executed between 2022-12-19 through 2022-12-30.
*** As noted above, in this run I substituted those primary addresses that evaluated to “invalid” with their corresponding “mailing” address records that had been recognized as “valid”, if possible. ***
Results:
Raw TrueNCOA Processing result stats on the full RVA dataset:
NCOA Processing of VA RVL Records
Full RVL 11-23 Primary Addresses (12/30/2022)
%
Unique RVL Mailing Addresses (12/30/2022)
%
Records Processed
6,127,856
216,896
18 – Month NCOA Moves
282,669
4.61%
8,247
3.80%
48 – Month NCOA Moves
163,931
2.68%
8,099
3.73%
Moves with no Forwarding Address
20,913
0.34%
1,415
0.65%
Total NCOA Moves
467,513
7.63%
17,761
8.19%
Vacant Flag
29,315
0.48%
22,763
10.49%
DPV Updated/Address Corrected Records
601,539
9.82%
18,555
8.55%
DPV Deliverable Records
5,835,230
95.22%
165,939
76.51%
DPV Non-Deliverable Records
185,752
3.03%
35,100
16.18%
LACS Updated (Rural Address converted to Street Address)
33,497
0.55%
254
0.12%
Residential Delivery Indicator
5,970,531
97.43%
194,342
89.60%
Addresses matched to the USPS Database
6,020,983
98.26%
201,040
92.69%
Invalid Addresses
107,304
1.75%
15,968
7.36%
Expired Addresses
10,822
0.18%
276
0.13%
Business Move (B)
340
0.01%
61
0.03%
Family Move (F)
116874
1.91%
5,390
2.49%
Individual Move (I)
350299
5.72%
12,310
5.68%
General Delivery Address
159
0.00%
170
0.08%
High Rise Address
764922
12.48%
7,097
3.27%
PO Box Address
28040
0.46%
158,359
73.01%
Rural Route Address
81
0.00%
269
0.12%
Single Family Address
5243321
85.57%
33,582
15.48%
Unknown
51903
0.85%
15,537
7.16%
Reporting as presented from the TrueNCOA data service. The TrueNCOA data dictionary is presented here.
Combining NCOA results of RVL Addresses with the DAL data:
Vacant Addresses:
There were 2,112 records across the state with addresses that have been flagged as (90-day) “Vacant” by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election according to the DAL file. Of those records, 1,542 were Early In-Person and 547 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location. (Note this is actually an increase over the previous results that were not adjusted for potential mailing address matches.)
P.O. Boxes (Non-protected):
There were 13,492 records across the state with addresses that have been flagged as P.O. Box Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election AND were NOT listed as protected entries according to the DAL file. (VA allows for voters who have a legal protective order to list a P.O. Box as their address of record on public documents) Of those records, 11,426 were Early In-Person and 2020 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Note, this is actually an increase over the previous results that were not adjusted for potential mailing address matches. This is not unexpected, as there are a number of PO box mailing addresses that have been substituted in for invalid primary street addresses. PO Boxes are not supposed to be allowed as registered voting addresses. (You should talk to your legislators about this discrepancy, because this catch-22 will likely need to be changed by legislative action!)
Invalid Addresses:
There were 2,164 records across the state with addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election. Of those records, 1,535 were Early In-Person and 598 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location. Note, this is actually a significant decrease over the previous results that were not adjusted for potential mailing addresses. This is not unexpected, as there were a number of invalid primary address with a valid (even if PO Box) mailing address. (The fact that the primary addresses do not validate with the USPS is it’s own issue, but we are ignoring that for this analysis as noted above.)
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 4,274 records across the state with addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election. Of those records, 3,077 were Early In-Person and 1,143 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Record of Moves Out-of-State:
There were 797 records that had records of NCOA moves to valid out-of-state addresses before 2022-08 that also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election. Of those records, 346 were Early In-Person and 450 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Results By District:
District 01:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 213 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 01. Of those records, 170 were Early In-Person and 38 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 364 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 01. Of those records, 288 were Early In-Person and 71 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 02:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 183 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 02. Of those records, 147 were Early In-Person and 33 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 441 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 02. Of those records, 344 were Early In-Person and 90 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 03:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 37 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 03. Of those records, 27 were Early In-Person and 10 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 324 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 03. Of those records, 223 were Early In-Person and 94 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 04:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 116 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 04. Of those records, 104 were Early In-Person and 12 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 318 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 04. Of those records, 256 were Early In-Person and 59 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 05:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 383 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 05. Of those records, 299 were Early In-Person and 81 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 584 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 05. Of those records, 445 were Early In-Person and 134 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 06:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 202 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 06. Of those records, 144 were Early In-Person and 53 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 400 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 06. Of those records, 301 were Early In-Person and 91 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 07:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 243 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 07. Of those records, 169 were Early In-Person and 68 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 370 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 07. Of those records, 274 were Early In-Person and 87 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 08:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 165 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 08. Of those records, 69 were Early In-Person and 94 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 413 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 08. Of those records, 226 were Early In-Person and 183 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 09:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 328 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 09. Of those records, 257 were Early In-Person and 66 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 479 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 09. Of those records, 373 were Early In-Person and 100 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 10:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 174 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 10. Of those records, 104 were Early In-Person and 68 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 246 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 10. Of those records, 164 were Early In-Person and 82 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 11:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 122 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 11. Of those records, 46 were Early In-Person and 75 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 335 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 11. Of those records, 181 were Early In-Person and 152 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Summary Data Files by Locality:
The complete set of graphics and statistics for each locality, and each congressional district in VA can be downloaded here as a zip file. The tabulated summary results can also be downloaded in excel, csv, or numbers format:
Edited on 2022-12-15 for typo corrections, addition of Congressional District breakdown, and added commentary section.
BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):
There were 15,419 ballots cast during early voting in the VA 2022 General Election where the voters’ registered address on record were flagged as “Invalid” by a National Change of Address (NCOA) database check. If we include addresses that were identified as 90-day Vacant the total rises to 17,244. Plotting the distribution of these based on the ZIP+4 identified by the NCOA check shows a disproportionate high amount of issues in the Eastern shore of VA.
A certified commercial provider of NCOA data verification was used to facilitate this analysis on raw data obtained from the VA Dept of Elections (“ELECT”). It is not technically possible to obtain a truly time-synchronized complete set of data for any election due to the way elections are run in VA, but we made every effort to obtain the data from the state as close in time as was possible. The NCOA database is maintained and curated by the United States Postal Service (USPS).
For those wishing to review specific entries, or to help validate these issues, and who are part of an organization that is able to receive and handle election information according to VA law and the VA Dept of Elections requirements, you may contact us to request the raw data breakdowns. We will need to validate your organization or employment and will make data available as legally allowed.
Commentary and Discussion (added 2022-12-15):
In response to recent interest on this matter, I would like to be very clear: We are simply presenting the data as compiled to facilitate public discourse. We have strived to only utilize data directly obtained from authoritative sources (ELECT, the USPS via TrueNCOA provider).
The designation of “Invalid” addresses is according to the definition by the USPS and TrueNCOA, i.e. the TrueNCOA check has reported the addresses as listed in the RVL have no match in the USPS database. Invalid addresses do not include things like valid P.O. Boxes or valid rural addresses.
The VA Constitution (Section II-1 and II-2) specify the requirements for voter eligibility to include that voters are required to supply a primary address for their registration record, regardless of their method of voting. VA is required by law to consistently maintain and validate these records. Based on the below analysis, the data shows that there is a small but statistically significant number of “Invalid” addresses associated for voters who cast ballots in the Nov 2022 election.
Continuing EPEC’s mission to promote voter participation, analyze election technology, and educate the public about best practices in managing election technology systems; we are providing the below analysis in order to educate and inform the public, legislators and elections officials about the existence of these discrepancies.
Details:
After receiving the results of a National Change of Address (NCOA) database check on the registration (not the temporary) addresses in the latest VA Registered Voter List (RVL). I’ve gone through and collated the flagged addresses and reconciled them with the entries in the Daily Absentee List (DAL) file records provided by the VA Dept. of Elections (“ELECT”).
The DAL file (dated 2022-12-08) provides a records of all of the voters that cast absentee (either Early In-Person or Mail-In) ballots in the election, and the RVL (dated 2022-11-23) gives all of the registered voter addresses and other pertinent information. Both datasets come directly from the VA Dept. of Elections and must be purchased. Total cost was ~$7000. The two datasets can be tied together using the voter Identification Number that is assigned to each (supposedly) unique voter by the state. Entries in the RVL should be unique to each registered voter (although there are a small number of duplicate voter IDs that I have seen … but thats for another post), whereas the DAL file can have multiple entries attributed to a single voter recording the various stages of ballot processing.
The NCOA check was performed on all addresses in the RVL file in order to detect recent moves, invalid addresses, vacant addresses, P.O. Boxes, commercial addresses, etc. The NCOA check takes multiple days to run using a commercial service provider and was executed between 2022-12-01 through 2022-12-06. The processing needed to be performed in two batches.
Results:
Raw TrueNCOA Processing result stats on the full RVA dataset:
NCOA Processing of VA RVL 2022-11-23 Records
Batch 1
Batch 2
Total
Percent
Records Processed
5,831,089
296,767
6,127,856
18 – Month NCOA Moves
264,210
12,618
276,828
4.52%
48 – Month NCOA Moves
155,274
865
156,139
2.55%
Moves with no Forwarding Address
23,651
447
24,098
0.39%
Total NCOA Moves
443,135
13,930
457,065
7.46%
Vacant Flag
26,865
1,742
28,607
0.47%
DPV Updated/Address Corrected Records
568,039
20,748
588,787
9.61%
DPV Deliverable Records
5,555,024
280,207
5,835,231
95.22%
DPV Non-Deliverable Records
173,322
12,427
185,749
3.03%
LACS Updated (Rural Address converted to Street Address)
32,116
1,327
33,443
0.55%
Residential Delivery Indicator
5,681,183
289,345
5,970,528
97.43%
Addresses matched to the USPS Database
5,728,347
292,634
6,020,981
98.26%
Invalid Addresses
102,617
4,161
106,778
1.74%
Expired Addresses
6,875
576
7,451
0.12%
Business Move (B)
339
6
345
0.01%
Family Move (F)
110,444
3,549
113,993
1.86%
Individual Move (I)
332,352
10,375
342,727
5.59%
General Delivery Address
153
0
153
0.00%
High Rise Address
703,903
62,059
765,962
12.50%
PO Box Address
26,973
770
27,743
0.45%
Rural Route Address
79
1
80
0.00%
Single Family Address
5,012,679
230,200
5,242,879
85.56%
Unknown
49,299
2,457
51,756
0.84%
Reporting as presented from the TrueNCOA data service. The TrueNCOA data dictionary is presented here.
Combining NCOA results of RVL Addresses with the DAL data:
Vacant Addresses:
There were 1,829 records across the state with registered addresses that have been flagged as (90-day) “Vacant” by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election according to the DAL file. Of those records, 1,317 were Early In-Person and 491 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Note: This graphic was updated on Thu Dec 15 to correct a typo in the title as to the date of the DAL file that was used.
P.O. Boxes (Non-protected):
There were 1,648 records across the state with registered addresses that have been flagged as P.O. Box Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election AND were NOT listed as protected entries according to the DAL file. (VA allows for voters who have a legal protective order to list a P.O. Box as their address of record on public documents) Of those records, 1,348 were Early In-Person and 294 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Note: This graphic was updated on Thu Dec 15 to correct a typo in the title as to the date of the DAL file that was used.
Invalid Addresses:
There were 15,419 records across the state with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election. Of those records, 12,766 were Early In-Person and 2,566 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Note: This graphic was updated on Thu Dec 15 to correct a typo in the title as to the date of the DAL file that was used.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 17,244 records across the state with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election. Of those records, 14,083 were Early In-Person and 3,053 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Note: This graphic was updated on Thu Dec 15 to correct a typo in the title as to the date of the DAL file that was used.
Record of Moves Out-of-State:
There were 793 records that had records of NCOA moves to valid out-of-state addresses before 2022-08 that also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election. Of those records, 338 were Early In-Person and 454 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Note: This graphic was updated on Thu Dec 15 to correct a typo in the title as to the date of the DAL file that was used.
Results By District:
This section was added 2022-12-15, per multiple requests for by-district breakouts.
District 01:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 3,222 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 01. Of those records, 2,841 were Early In-Person and 364 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 3,310 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 01. Of those records, 2,909 were Early In-Person and 384 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 02:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 2,552 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 02. Of those records, 2,185 were Early In-Person and 353 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 2,763 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 02. Of those records, 2,346 were Early In-Person and 400 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 03:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 137 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 03. Of those records, 97 were Early In-Person and 34 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 412 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 03. Of those records, 283 were Early In-Person and 117 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 04:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 507 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 04. Of those records, 423 were Early In-Person and 78 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 695 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 04. Of those records, 567 were Early In-Person and 121 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 05:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 2,093 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 05. Of those records, 1,738 were Early In-Person and 348 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 2,264 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 05. Of those records, 1,860 were Early In-Person and 395 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 06:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 1,214 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 06. Of those records, 990 were Early In-Person and 212 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 1,390 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 06. Of those records, 1,129 were Early In-Person and 247 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 07:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 1,042 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 07. Of those records, 868 were Early In-Person and 167 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 1,139 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 07. Of those records, 946 were Early In-Person and 183 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 08:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 276 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 08. Of those records, 148 were Early In-Person and 125 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 517 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 08. Of those records, 300 were Early In-Person and 212 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 09:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 3,247 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 09. Of those records, 2,639 were Early In-Person and 597 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 3,369 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 09. Of those records, 2,733 were Early In-Person and 624 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 10:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 940 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 10. Of those records, 740 were Early In-Person and 198 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 992 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 10. Of those records, 783 were Early In-Person and 207 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
District 11:
Invalid Addresses:
There were 189 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 11. Of those records, 97 were Early In-Person and 90 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Invalid OR Vacant Addresses:
There were 393 records with registered addresses that have been flagged as “Invalid” or “Vacant” Addresses by the NCOA check and also had an Early In-Person, Mail-In, FWAB or Provisional ballot cast in the VA 2022 General Election in District 11. Of those records, 227 were Early In-Person and 163 were Mail-In. The geographic distribution of the addresses (based on the ZIP+4), as reported by the NCOA service, is shown below, with the size of the marker proportional to the total number of counts at that ZIP+4 location.
Summary Data Files by Locality:
The complete set of graphics and statistics for each locality, and each congressional district in VA can be downloaded here as a zip file. The tabulated summary results can also be downloaded in excel, csv, or numbers format:
I’ve stumbled across an interesting data artifact that I’m not sure what to make of. But I will present it here for completeness.
In the Registered Voter List available from the VA Dept of Elections (“ELECT”), each record of a registered voter has an “effective date” associated with it. This can be the same as the actual registration date, or the date that the voters record is returned to “active” status, etc. It appears that sometime within the last year, almost all of the voter registrations with a previous effective date earlier than June 2011 have had their effective date reassigned.
For this analysis I am using an RVL that I purchased from ELECT on 2021-11-06 and comparing it with an RVL purchased on 2022-11-22. I am only comparing the records associated with common voter IDs between each dataset. Any new or removed voters in the last year have been removed from the data and the corresponding plots below.
In the 2021 RVL, we can see the distribution of the effective dates in the histogram below. The majority of records have rather recent effective dates, but there are diminishing tails from long-term voters who’s effective date of their registration goes back many years. (The y-axis in the plot is logarithmic, so we can better see the shape of the distribution tails.)
This isn’t all-together so surprising. Newer voters, or voters who have made recent changes to their registration information, will likely get an updated effective date on their voter registration record. Older, or longer term voters, that have not made any recent changes and stay active would show older effective dates on their records.
Now compare that to the RVL file dated 2022-11-22. Again, this comparison and the data in these plots is only those records that share common voter ids between the two files. Sometime between the time I downloaded the 2021-11-06 RVL and the 2022-11-22 RVL, almost all records with effective dates before July 2011 have had their effective dates reset to a more recent date.
I don’t really know what to make of this. Was there a mass update of voter registration records? Or a database restore, or some other operation on the records?
Even more interesting is when we superimpose the two histograms we see that the 2022 records with effective date after July 2011 look to also have had a significant percentage of dates reset. We see the red curve maintains it shape, save for the large spike at the far right, but is shifted lower … as if a constant percentage of the records have been included in the effective date shift.
Now if we apply a constant multiplier of 20x to the red (2022) dataset we can mostly re-align the histograms.
Of the effective dates that were changed between the two files, the distribution of the adjustments to the effective dates is shown below. I find it interesting that there are a number of records where the effective date has been moved backwards (?) in time.
We know there have been significant issues with the database used by ELECT (known as the “VERIS” database), so maybe this is an artifact of some maintenance operations or repairs on the data entries? Or maybe this is a symptom of a larger problem. Whatever it is, it doesn’t make a lot of sense in what should be a very well maintained and authoritative set of records.
PWC Board Concludes Human Error ‘Likely’ Before Certifying Results
Non-profit electoral process group praises electoral board for responding to public’s calls to conduct a partial audit of discrepancies before certifying election results
November 16, 2022 –- Election officials in Virginia’s Prince William County met to certify the results of the 2022 General Election after they conducted a hand-count of ballot counts in conflict with machine counts and concluded that human error was a “likely” cause rather than machine error.
The board’s decision to conduct a hand-count of the ballots in question followed a call for a review from the public, local and state officials, and Electoral Process Education Corporation (EPEC), a Virginia-based non-profit 501c (3) that provides election data analysis.
Although the PWC electoral board was not able to reconcile one outstanding difference between the poll-book count of votes cast and the machine scans in two precincts, it judged the differences were not likely coming from machine malfunctions.
While it is still problematic for poll books not to match the scanner tapes, it is a much more serious issue when the number of physical ballots in the accumulation bin and the scanner totals do not match.
EPEC’s recommendations based on its analysis of the election data include the following:
Standard processes should be updated to require verification that the number of ballots in the scanner collection bin match the scanner result report tape. If the numbers do not match, an on premises hand tabulation be performed by the election officers and the results recorded in the official public record.
EPEC also commended the PWC board of elections for ensuring transparency by confirming that the final counts of the physical ballots align with machine scan tallies before certifying the results.
At Least Two Precincts Showed Different Physical Ballot Count Compared to Scanner Counts
Non-profit electoral process group calls for a full audit of precincts with discrepancies before Commonwealth of Virginia certifies local and statewide election results.
November 14, 2022 — Electoral Process Education Corporation (EPEC), a non-profit 501c (3) that performs election data analysis, is urging Virginia’s public election officials to verify scanner machine ballot counts before certification of results in key precincts as a result of recent findings.
The recommendation comes after election officers, analysts and observers discovered discrepancies in the data reported to and provided by the Virginia Department of Elections (“ELECT”). The findings raise questions about the proper certification of the machines in question, and whether issues were addressed according to statewide election protocols.
In at least two precincts in Prince William County (PWC) the number of physical ballots cast and accumulated was different than the machine scanner’s tally of ballots, as reported by election officers. The numbers must align as part of the precinct’s tracking of total ballots cast at the voting location.
Although the number of ballots impacted was small, the repeated findings raise questions about the origin of the errors and whether the machines were operating correctly.
In Virginia’s VA-7 Congressional District Race, election officers observed differences in ballot counts of voters who were checked in with pollbooks compared to the actual number of ballots in the machines throughout the day. When the election officers went to close out the polling station, they discovered a ballot scanner with 27 more ballots represented in the electronic total than physical ballots present inside the machine’s collection bin. The scanner reported 531 ballots scanned and recorded, but only 504 physical ballots were in the collection bin underneath the scanner.
Election officers documented these issues with the General Registrar and Electoral Board and recorded the information in the official Statement of Results (SOR) and Chief’s notes. The officers proceeded to conduct a hand tabulation of the vote totals on the ballots in accordance with election procedures. They repeated this tabulation multiple times, with multiple officers witnessing the process. The results of the hand tabulation, as compared to the scanner totals, is as follows:
The Democrat candidate received 22 of the unexplained votes, a 7.86% difference compared to the physical ballot tally for the candidate. The Republican candidate received another 3 votes, a 1.34% difference over the physical ballot tally for the candidate. There were 2 write-in ballots.
In Virginia’s VA-10 Congressional District Race, elections officers also found a small difference between machine scans and physical ballots (approximately 5-10, out of 1505 cast). EPEC is working to confirm if this discrepancy was reported on the official Statements of Results or not.
EPEC’s collection and analysis of additional datasets resulted in the discovery of further issues and discrepancies, to include the following:
The Daily Absentee List (DAL) data [of in-person and absentee early voting] provided by Virginia’s Dept. of Elections shows a more than 20% error rate in the ability of e-poll books and backend data streams to record and/or report accurate check in times for in-person early votes. See more at https://digitalpollwatchers.org/on-machine-ballots-with-logically-impossible-time-stamps/
EPEC assisted poll watching teams with a unique web form for documenting observations. According to its analysis of 738 reports (at the time of this writing) by poll watchers in Virginia, 21% (155 reports) contained at least one serious issue flagged for further review; 10.16 % (75 reports) specifically flagged data discrepancies or equipment issues. The VA poll watcher reporting summary can be reviewed at https://digitalpollwatchers.org/2022-general-election-va-poll-watcher-reporting-summary/
The PWC Electoral Board is expected to meet Tuesday, Nov. 15th, to perform a final certification of local election results. The State Board of Elections will subsequently meet to certify the results of the election statewide.
EPEC is urging VA election officials to perform a detailed, transparent process to explain and rectify these discrepancies. It has compiled a list of recommendations based on its analysis:
Sequester all equipment at voting precincts that found discrepancies between ballots and machine-counts, perform a full hand count and tabulation audit for these precincts.
Physical ballots should be compared with the Scanner Report Tapes, the full Cast Vote Record (CVR), Digital Ballot Images and other machine records and logs.
Ensure election equipment complies with Virginia’s election statutes by certifying software, hardware, and programming hash codes, and then checking randomly selected precincts with the same equipment but with no reported issues.
Standard processes should be updated to require verification that the number of ballots in the scanner collection bin match the scanner result report tape. If the numbers do not match, an on-premises hand tabulation shall be performed by the election officers and the results recorded in the official public record.
In looking over the VA DAL data, one interesting issue that is readily apparent, is that the BALLOT_RECIEPT_DATE field for in-person, on-machine early vote data is logically impossible.
These time-stamps are supposed to be generated by the electronic poll-books when a voter is checked in at an in-person early voting site. The appeal and rationale for utilizing electronic poll-books is exactly because the can automate the recording of check-in and (theoretically) minimize human error. The operating hours of VA in-person early voting sites are limited to 7am – 7pm. I’m not aware of any in-person early voting center that had extended hours past those. Therefore, logically, we would expect that the electronic poll book generated time stamps for check-ins for in-person on-machine early votes would fall within the 7am – 7pm bounds.
The plot below is generated directly from the Daily Absentee List (DAL) file pulled from the VA Department of Elections on 11/08/2022 at 6am. The x-axis gives the time (rounded to the nearest minute) of the BALLOT_RECIEPT_DATE field associated with recorded Early In-Person On-Machine ballots in the file. The (logrithmic) y-axis gives the total number of Early In-Person On-Machine records that were recorded with that unique timestamp. The blue trace represents all of the records that fall within the daily 7am – 7pm bounds, and the red trace represents the data outside of those bounds.
There were 520,549 records that fall within the expected time bounds, and 156,576 that fall outside of the bounds. From a purely systems perspective, that means that the ability of our electronic poll books (or the backend database they are tied to) to accurately record the check-in time of Early In-Person On-Machine voters has an error rate of 156576 / (156576+520549) = 23.12%.
Let me say that again. A 23.12% error rate.
23.12% of the time, our electronic poll-book based system is reporting a logically impossible time for a person to have physically walked into an open + operating early voting location to check-in and cast their ballot.
Now, if we want to be generous and allow for the possibility that maybe voting locations opened early or closed late and we pad our (7am – 7pm) bounds to be from (6am – 8pm) and run the same analysis, we still get an error rate of 23.09%.
If we pad the hours of operations limits even further to (5am – 9pm), we still get an error rate of 23.06%.
If we run the same analysis using the 7am – 7pm bounds on the 2021 and 2020 data we get 29.64% and 71.17% error rates, respectively.
Update 2022-11-13
I adjusted the allowed times to 7am-10pm and re-ran the most recent 2022, 2021 and 2020 DAL files, as well as breaking down by locality. While doing this I noticed that some localities had all timestamps set to midnight, while others still had invalid timestamps set to unique values (but outside operational hours), and some had combinations of both. I’ve delineated the plots such that magenta traces are from ballot receipt timestamps that are all set to midnight, red trace is invalid timestamps not set to midnight, and blue traces are valid within 7am-10pm hours of operation (which is very very generous).
There are two error percentages being computed and being displayrd in the graph title area. The first (“BRx error”) is as described above and results in a 23.14% error in the 2022 VA statewide data. The second (“BRx_Mok error”) is as described above except we allow for the uniformly midnight ballot receipt dates to be presumed allowable, and results in a 0.05% error metric.
The inclusion of the latter class of error computation is in order to account for the remote chance that a locality is legitimately using paper poll books or otherwise not recording the time of the voter checkin, but only recording the date information (which would be consistent with all timestamps at midnight). VA requires the use of electronic poll books, but there are still some that use manual entry paper poll-books as backup. So even IF that was the explanation for why so many entries were uniformly timestamped to midnight … (A) why did they have to go to their paper poll book backups in the first place? and (B) we still have a residual error of 0.05% across the state that needs to be explained even after removing uniform midnight timestamps from consideration. That might not seem a terribly huge error rate at first blush, but when you consider that most electronic data recording systems (at least that I am aware of) have error rate requirement thresholds for acceptance testing set to the order of 1/1,000,000 … thats still unacceptable. I have been unable to find a documented requirement for error rate threshold for the electronic poll book systems used in VA, as per the VA department of elections.
The complete tabulation of all errors for each locality is provided here:
The segmented Prince William County (my home county) 2022 plot is below. There is a 0.06% error rate of invalid (all midnight) timestamps in the Ballot Receipt date data.
The segmented Loudoun County 2022 plot is below. There is a 0.03% error rate of invalid (all midnight) timestamps in the Ballot Receipt date data.
The segmented Manassass City 2022 plot is below. There is a 5.82% error rate of invalid (all midnight) timestamps in the Ballot Receipt date data.
The segmented Mathews County 2022 plot is below. There is a 24.21% error rate of total invalid timestamps in the Ballot Receipt date data, and a reduced error rate of 15.71% when allowing all midnight timestamps to be considered as valid.
The segmented Virginia Beach City 2022 plot is below. There is a 0.24% error rate of invalid (all midnight) timestamps in the Ballot Receipt date data.
The complete set of generated plots for every locality is included in the attached zip file:
The EPEC staff monitors the Virginia Daily Absentee List for unexpected values. We essentially “audit” the electoral process in Virginia during an election cycle. We are currently monitoring the 2022 General Election.
One of the areas of interest is the DAL – Daily Absentee List. It shows the current status of absentee voting in Virginia – by mail in ballot and early voting (absentee in person).
In Virginia, Absentee In-Person Early Voting started on Friday, September 23. Our initial DAL file was saved on Saturday, September 24, at 9 PM.
The official Ballot Status in the DAL at 9 PM was:
Issued: 290,095
Federal Worker Absentee Ballot (FWAB) 1
Marked: 2,118
On Machine: 8,397
Not Issued: 5,766
Unmarked: 546
Pre-Processed: 1
Deleted: 13,015
Grand Total: 319,939
Nearly 19,327 ballots – 6 % of those requested, were in a state which would not be counted if the election vote counting period were over today – Not Issued, Unmarked, or Deleted. There was also 1 ballot in a Pre-Processed Ballot Status state. The magnitude of ballots in one of these “states” is surprising but not alarming.
It appears Not Issued means there is either a backlog in mailing out ballots or an issue with voter registration – legal name, address of record in the registration database, citizenship, etc. Unless the backlog or issue is resolved, the voter will be denied a ballot.
Unmarked is associated with mail-in Absentee Ballots. A Marked ballot is moved to an Unmarked status if an election official notices an error with the associated absentee ballot documents such as a name or address error, missing signature, or missing signature verification. Election officers are required to contact voters if their ballot requires a cure– correction to the information accompanying the ballot. If the cure is not provided, the ballot will not be counted. Some voters choose to have a new ballot mailed to them if a cure is required, in which case a ballot in the Unmarked state will be spoiled and marked Deleted in the system. This is one of the reasons we see voters having one or more Deleted ballots associated with them in the DAL files.
Deleted ballots are not supposed to be processed (counted). We believe these are officially referred to as “spoiled ballots. The process to keep these separate from countable ballots is an interest area for election integrity observers. The most common reason for ballots to get Deleted (spoiled) is voter error. Examples: mistake when filling out a ballot in person resulting in the first ballot being spoiled and a new ballot issued, or a voter surrendering an absentee ballot to vote in person or receive a new one via the mail.
More accurate voter registration recordsMAY reduce the volume of initial Not Issued and Deleted ballots. Our post-election observations and recommendations will address this issue. Our initial hypothesis – changes in residency, relocation within Localities, ineligible voters requesting ballots, and voters passing away probably account for most of the unexpectedly large values of ballots in an “at risk” state.
The number of ballots in “Provisional” status is growing. This is to be expected because Virginia began allowing “same day voter registration” on 1 October, and same-day votes are to be labeled Provisional.
A handful of ballots were Provisional status prior to 1 October, and this ought to be explained. The steady increase of Provisional ballots started on 19 October. The count of Provisional ballots is currently growing by approximately 200 ballots each day. This number is expected to grow exponentially as we approach election day.
The root cause of the Provisional ballot increase is most likely “same day registration and voting” but a detailed study has not yet been performed.
Here is the changes to the voter registration numbers for each VA locality over the course of the 2022 general election. These files will be updated automatically as the data becomes available. The first graph below is the percent change with the color coding clamped to +/- 3 x the standard deviation, and the second is the absolute percent change.
