When The Numbers Don’t Add Up

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about the voter rolls in Rhode Island.

The article reports:

The Providence Journal reports that Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea conducted an audit of the state’s voter registry and identified some 150,000 non-Rhode Islanders registered to vote in the state. Gorbea says this group of non-state residents is primarily composed of citizens who have since moved to other jurisdictions or died and does not suggest widespread fraud.

It’s not fraud if none of them voted, but how do we know how many of them voted?

The article continues:

The Journal previously reported that there were 781,770 registered voters in the state in 2016. As such, the group of non-state residents Gorbea’s audit identified account for 19 percent of all registered voters in Rhode Island.

…Still, Gorbea concedes an inaccurate voter registry jeopardizes the state’s elections.

“[H]aving clean voter lists [is] critical to preserving the integrity of our elections and ensure that elections are fair, fast and accurate,” she said.

One has to wonder why states are not more anxious to clean up their voter rolls.

This is another example of why the Commission on Election Integrity is needed.