From EPEC Team Voter Newsletter: EPEC Team’s Senior Data Analyst asks: Why Are So Many ‘New’ Registrations being created For voters In convalescence?
Senior Analyst Rick Naigle’s recent analysis of Virginia’s voter-registration rolls shows odd spikes in first-time registrations for elderly voters aged 77 and up — and more odd items.
Virginia Registered Voter List (RVL) as of April 2025 shows 6.2 million registrations. Assuming each is a unique voter (individuals must be age 16 or older in order to register to vote), Virginia should know that it has at least 6.2 million living residents between age 16 and age 116.
If age at the time of registration is random, we would expect maybe a hundred or so voters to register for the first time from 77 years of age or older.
Yet we have found more than 10,000 on the Registered Voter List who registered to vote after turning 77 years of age.
Our analysis also found odd patterns of voter-registration spikes in five-year intervals, in addition to a few hundred voters who appear to have been registered prior to the age of 16. And we counted one hearty soul who was registered for the first time at the age of 115. But here we focus on the spike in first-time registrations of elderly voters.
Why are there so many?
See the Full Analysis Slides Below:
More Analysis:
The chart below shows four voters registered to vote in 1902 (number not visible on the graph). Anyone who registered to vote in 1902 would have had to be 21 years of age in 1902, meaning they would have had to have been born no later than 1881.
If that were the case, we would have four voters age roughly 143 or 144 years of age on our Registered Voter List (2025 – 1881 = 144).
We presume we are dealing with data quality issues, but we cannot rule out manipulation of elderly voters.
Analysis Methodology
We computed the age of voters at the time of registration by subtracting Year of Birth from Registration Year.
Computed voter ages at the time of registration ranged from -82 years of age to 115 years of age. The median age (50% below, 50% above) was 31 years of age.
Average age was computed to be 33.5 years of age. Age standard deviation was computed to be 14.4 years. From this we can compute an “approximate” Upper Control Limit = Average + 3x Standard Deviation = 76.7 years of age.
So, we have Minimum (-82), Median (31), Average (or Mean) (33.5), StdDev (14.4), and UCL (76.7).
What is the UCL (Upper Control Limit) and why is it of interest?
We did not verify the actual distribution of the Age When Registered computations, but this is close enough for us to identify registrations that may end up being challenged, if not audited for accuracy.
We added some “slack” to the UCL. We used Age 85 as the Upper Control Limit for special cause auditing — it should be “close enough.”
The chart below shows the registration dates for voters who registered to vote when they were 85 years of age or older. We observe 9,913 voter registrations where the voter was 85 years of age or older. We can see a pattern in the data.
The maximum of registrants 85 years of age or older occurred on 15 October 2024, when 126 senior citizens were registered to vote. That was probably the last day for in-person registration for the 2024 General Election.
It looks like there is a spike associated with the last day of registration for most General Elections since 2012.
“Special cause” might be the last day to register. It is worth noting that there was also a registration spike of elderly voters on 5 November 2024 (Election Day).
This is new, and probably occurred because Same Day Registration was allowed during the 2024 General Election.
We must still ask the following questions:
- Why are there so many elderly voters age 85 or older registering to vote for the first time?
- Are these voters in convalescent centers?
- Are we seeing elderly voters having their ballots being harvested, possibly without knowledge or consent?
- Are elderly voters submitting their ballots absentee via third party harvesters?
- Are these ballots being completed by someone other than the voter?
We do not know the answer to these questions. Yet the questions remain after observing many voter registrations more than three standard deviations from the mean.
We would expect perhaps a hundred, but not nearly 10,000.
These registrations should be audited by General Registrars or the Department of Elections.
The following Localities had 150 or more voters on the RVL who registered to vote when they were Age 85 or older:
Out of 133 Localities in Virginia, there were 132 Localities with voters registering at age 85 or older. The list of all Localities, in alphabetic order, follows:
We would expect to see a few voters registering to vote on or after their 77th birthday, but the number should be no more than a few hundred, just as we would expect for even older voters.
These could be valid registrations arising from downsizing and family relocation decisions, but the magnitude of late-life registrations warrants an audit/explanation.
We also question the process involved with merging duplicate registrations, and whether some of these files could be duplicates that are being merged without maintaining the voters’ original date of registration.
That may also explain why so many elderly first-time voters are showing up in the voter lists.
EPEC Team is standing by to provide more information necessary (such as RVL IDs) to General Registrars and/or the Department of Elections if they feel more audits are warranted. ##
Rick Naigle is Senior Data Analyst for EPEC Team and a member of its Board of Directors.
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