The Ocean State has far more registered voters than data from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate it should have.

PROVIDENCE JOURNAL GRAPHIC BY PAUL EDWARD PARKER

See whether you can make sense of this math problem:

The U.S. Census Bureau says Rhode Island has about 770,000 adult citizens and that 73.5 percent of them are registered to vote.

So how many voters does the state have on its rolls?

Need help? Here�s a hint: 73.5 percent of 770,000 is about 566,000.

If that�s your guess, you�re wrong.

Rhode Island�s voting list claims more than 748,000 people.

That�s 180,000 more than the Census Bureau numbers suggest belong there.

And 20 of Rhode Island�s 39 municipalities, from the largest city to the smallest town, had more registered voters than it had citizens old enough to vote.

The main reasons that voting lists wind up with thousands of phantom voters is the difficulty of tracking people who have moved or have died, according to John Lindback, executive director of a national group working to improve voter lists and a former statewide elections official in Oregon and Alaska.

That raises a variety of problems, he said.

Voters risk being turned away from polls at their new residences if they are registered at their old addresses.

The government wastes money printing ballots that aren�t needed, and government and candidates pay for mailings to voters who don�t exist.

The possibility that someone could fraudulently vote in place of a voter who died or moved shakes confidence in the system.

�It�s a real problem in terms of the optics and how the system appears to citizens,� Lindback said.

Nellie Gorbea echoed that concern. She�s the Democratic candidate for secretary of state, the official who maintains the state�s central voter registry.

�This is really important because you�re talking about people�s trust in their government and the way elections are run,� Gorbea said.

The inaccurate list also makes voter turnout percentages meaningless. Usually calculated as a percent of registered voters, turnouts cannot be accurate if the number of registered voters is not accurate.

With so many phantom voters on the rolls, the actual turnout percentage is much higher.

No easy task

Maintaining an accurate list, however, is not the easiest task.

People seldom remember to cancel their old registration when they move.

�The last thing that they�re thinking about when they land in their new home is changing their voter registration,� John Carlevale, Gorbea�s Republican rival, said.

�A lot of people think this is done for them automatically,� said Lindback, adding that many expect a change of address with a motor vehicle registry or the U.S. Postal Service to trigger an update on the voting list.

But the right to vote is one of the most cherished in America, making removing voters who have moved more challenging.

�You can end up knocking off people who are legitimate voters,� said Alex Keyssar, a public policy professor at Harvard University�s Kennedy School of Government.

Michael P. Narducci, director of elections at the Rhode Island secretary of state�s office, said that state law includes an intentionally time-consuming process for removing someone from the voting lists.

It starts with elections officials sending mail to a voter. If it comes back as undeliverable, the voter is placed on a list of inactive voters. Inactive voters have all the rights of any other voter; just show up to a poll and vote with no restrictions. However, if an inactive voter misses two federal elections, officials can remove that voter from the list.

The process can take up to four years.

And, Narducci said, sending mail to more than 700,000 registered voters is a laborious and expensive task. State law allows individual cities and towns to undertake such a mailing to their voters, but, Narducci said, none of them has done so.

Every other year � in the odd-numbered years, when there is no regular election � the state hires a vendor for less than $2,000 to compare the voting list with the Postal Service�s national change of address database.

But that system has two holes in it.

The postal list goes back only 18 months, Narducci said. With Rhode Island checking the list roughly every 24 months, that leaves six months � or one quarter of the time � that changes of address filed by Rhode Islanders wouldn�t appear on the list.

And not everyone files a change of address with the Postal Service.

When someone turns up on the postal list, elections officials have to send that person a letter, Narducci said. If it comes back undeliverable, officials can declare the voter inactive and begin the removal process.

Voters who die

For voters who die, the system is a bit more efficient.

Narducci said that every month the state Health Department sends the secretary of state a list of people who have died. Those people can be removed immediately.

But the list is of only in-state deaths, Narducci said. So, if a Rhode Islander dies out of state, or if a former Rhode Islander whose move wasn�t caught on the postal change-of-address list dies, that person could remain on the voting list forever.

That�s where Lindback�s group comes in.

The Electronic Registration Information Center � known by the acronym ERIC � is a consortium of states that shares their voting databases and motor vehicle databases with one another � with sensitive information, such as social security number and date of birth, protected. The consortium also monitors the postal change-of-address database and the database of all deaths nationwide that have been reported to the Social Security Administration.

ERIC�s computer compares the databases, and, as an example, if a voter from one state shows up at a new address in another state�s motor vehicle database, sends a report to the original state. That state can then send a letter to the voter to start the removal process.

Since ERIC began in 2012, it has found more than 2.5 million voters who had either moved or died, but were still on their original state�s voter rolls.

Currently, 11 states, including Connecticut, plus the District of Columbia are ERIC members. Rhode Island is not a member. It costs $25,000 to join ERIC, plus each state pays a portion of the consortium�s $530,000 yearly budget. The amount depends on the state�s population, with the largest state currently paying about $60,000 and the smallest $20,000.

�We should definitely be a part of that,� said Democratic secretary of state candidate Gorbea. �I want to make sure the government works for people, and that means making sure that elections are fair and accurate.�

Carlevale, the Republican nominee, declined to comment on whether the state should join ERIC. �I can�t render an opinion at the moment because I don�t know what they do.�

Narducci said that Rhode Island has held off on joining ERIC to wait for more states to be part of the consortium, especially Florida, to which a large number of Rhode Islanders move.

Other ideas

Part of making sure elections are fair and accurate is making sure the voting list is up to date, Gorbea said, and this includes occasionally consulting outside sources of information about voters.

When she was deputy secretary of state, the state combined the 39 separate voting lists maintained by the cities and towns into one list. At that time, the office used motor vehicle records and birth, marriage and death records to sort through duplicate registrations.

Also, she wants to allow voters to file a change of address online.

Carlevale favors two methods to keep the voting lists clean and make sure phantoms do not vote.

�I support the voter ID law, and I would oppose any effort to repeal it,� he said. Gorbea favors repealing the state�s 2011 voter ID law.

The law requires voters to show a photo identification before getting a ballot.

He also said that local boards of canvassers should �set aside a morning or afternoon� to contact voters to make sure they are still at their registered address. �The easiest way to do that is telephone call.�

He acknowledged that that would be an added duty for local officials. �We are here to service the public. It requires work. It requires effort,� he said. �The reality of it is these lists require constant vigilance and monitoring.�