Following up, as promised, on "more fun with numbers" post

A couple of weeks ago, just after the primary, I wrote a post that noted that, even while the population of Chicago in particular and Cook County generally was decreasing, the voter rolls were increasing.

Using figures provided by the Tribune, the U.S. Census Bureau, and our local election authorities, I discovered that, although the county's population dropped by 42,000 in the last four years, the voting rolls increased by 224,004. (There were other examples, but this was the best.)

These numbers seemed problematic.

Now, according to the customs and practices of our current un-civil society, as a blogger in possession of a true and uncomfortable fact, I believe I would have been wholly justified in leaping to the most extreme conclusions and spewing all manner of speculations, the wilder the better, across your screen. (And, actually, being in possession of 'true' facts is probably only optional; it's the leaping and the spewing that really matters.) Fame and fortune would be mine! Maybe I could parlay this epiphany into a book deal....

On the other hand, I read the other day that bloggers getting book deals was 'so 1995.' But, perhaps, by spinning this one fact as wildly as possible, I might get booked on a cable TV shouting show. Which one, I suppose, would be dependent on whether I spun my little fact clockwise or counterclockwise.

Or, alternatively, I could ask the election authorities for an explanation.

That being the less business-savvy course, it is the one I chose. In my March 23 post, I promised to report on any responses received.

And I've now heard from both Cook County Clerk David Orr's office and the Chicago Board of Elections.

James Scalzitti, Deputy Communications Director for the Clerk's office, wrote that not all eligible voters actually register. Historically, he said, "voter rolls have only captured about 80 percent of eligible voters." But, over the past four years, the Clerk's office has done several things to identify and register hitherto unregistered voters.

Specifically, according to Scalzitti, the Clerk's office participates in ERIC (Electronic Registration Information Center) and the U.S. Postal Service's National Change of Address (NCOA) registry.

ERIC is a multi-state voter information sharing system, Scalzitti said. It compares Illinois' voter registration data, USPS Change of Address, death record data and some motorist info against data from other member states. From that we get reports that identify in-state movers, cross-state movers, deceased voters, in-state duplicates, and eligible but unregistered voters. "With these tools," Scalzitti wrote, "we're able to do digital canvassing of voter registrations and add missing information, such as birthdates, driver's license numbers, and also weed out old addresses, other old information."

Of course, that merely makes voter records more accurate. It does not increase registrations; it might actually decrease them. Scalzitti acknowledged, "Because of our participation in ERIC and NCOA, we've been able to do a better job of scrubbing the voter rolls of people who may have moved or died without telling us."

But, at the same time, Scalzitti noted, since 2014, "Illinoisans have been able to register online ("through the state Board of Elections website - our website directs them there.) So we've made registration easier in the last four years."

Scalzitti also cited the relatively new practice of Election Day registration. Persons can simply show up at their polling place on Election day and register. "Before anyone asks," Scalzitti cautioned, "they do have to provide two forms of ID." On March 20, according to Scalzitti, "we had 4,241 people in suburban Cook register on Election Day, 1,006 of them because their address had changed, while the remaining 3,235 were new registrations.

Moreover, people are allowed to register after the usual registration period, during Early Voting, according to Scalzitti. In "Grace Period Registration and Voting," a prospective voter, after showing ID, has to vote immediately at the early voting site; he or she can not return on Election Day.

Another 940 17-year olds were able to register for last month's primary, Scalzitti said, because they will turn 18 before the November general election. And, in general, Scalzitti noted, the Clerk's office does "a heckuva lot of outreach (voter registration events) at suburban highs schools and colleges both in the suburbs and city."

Meanwhile, according to the Chicago Board of Elections, "we will continue to have more and more inclusive (and up to date and accurate) voter rolls as the Automatic Voter Registration legislation takes hold."

The reference is to Public Act 100-0464. A key component of the AVR legislation is new §1A-16.1 of the Election Code, which provides that every application for issuance or renewal of a driver's license (other than the temporary visitor's driver's license issued to undocumented aliens) will also serve as a voter registration application. In order to evade registration under this system, a driver's license applicant would have to specifically decline to register to vote.

These provisions of the AVR legislation will not come into effect until Illinois has met the requirements of the federal REAL ID Act of 2005. (The State of Illinois currently has an extension to comply until October 10, 2018.) And, of course, Illinois driver's licenses that are compliant with the REAL ID Act can only be issued to lawful citizens.

Meanwhile, according to the CBOE, "the portion of the law related to data updates has been in effect, meaning all of the jurisdictions are receiving more updates of records without the voters having to take any action."

The CBOE cites two long-term goals for AVR -- to "update records and send voters their new voter card and polling place information more seamlessly" and to "expand the voter rolls to include a greater share of all eligible voters." The net result, curiously enough, according to the CBOE, "could be higher turnouts in terms of raw numbers of voters casting ballots, but lower 'turnout rates' because achieving, for example, 70% turnout will now require that many more voters to come out."

In sum, then, increased registration efforts have led to increased voter registration, even as the population declines. With the AVR legislation, the numbers of registered voters should increase further still, even if the population decline is not reversed.