Hundreds of people in Ada County have been stripped of their voter registration when they shouldn’t have been. It all came to light when KBOI’s Truth Squad received a call from a woman in Eagle, saying her husband received a letter that said his voter registration was taken away. When the Truth Squad began making calls, Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa, said it alerted him to the magnitude of the problem countywide. Charmaine Miller, the Eagle resident, read the letter her husband received in the mail. “Dear David…you are currently registered in Arizona. Based on this information, we have canceled your registration in Ada County, Idaho,” she said. “We’ve never been in Arizona,” Miller told KBOI.
Ysursa explains that the mix-up happened because for the first time, Idaho is taking part in the Interstate Voter Registration Cross Check program. Under it, Idaho and the 27 other states, cross check their voter databases.
If someone is registered to vote in more than one state, county clerks will cancel the most recent voter registration. In her husband’s case, he had the same exact first and last name and birth date as another David Miller in Arizona. But the men don’t have the same middle initial, and Ysursa says that should have been checked.