Boone County voter registrations lag compared with 2004
Missouri has just more than 4 million registrations so far this year.
Published Oct. 10, 2008
Now that the voter registrations deadline has passed in Missouri, it's clear that Boone County will not break its 2004 voter registration record.
That year, 20,878 new voters joined the voter roll. As of Thursday, 17,795 new registrations had been processed this year.
Boone County Clerk Wendy Noren said the office still had about 1,500 registrations to process, but the number is not clear because other offices will continue to send in registrations.
Although these registrations were sent to the wrong office, they are still legitimate because an official office received them by Wednesday's deadline.
"We've been running 20 to 25 percent lower all year long," Noren said in reference to this year's voter registration compared with 2004.
In Missouri, voter registration this year is 1.5 percent higher than it was in 2006, according to the secretary of state's office. This is still below the 2004 registration, which was 4,194,146 people.
According to the secretary of state, as of Thursday, statewide voter registrations totaled 4,066,188.
The pace at which counties must register voters can pose some difficulties. This year, eight workers with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now pleaded guilty to voter fraud for submitting false voter registrations prior to 2006 election.
Other allegations have been made against ACORN recently in Missouri.
Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, said her office had about 1,000 questionable registrations with the ACORN stamp on them, according to an Associated Press report released Wednesday.
The allegations come after questionable registrations from ACORN were found in Connecticut and Nevada.
FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton confirmed the bureau had been in contact with Missouri election boards, but could not mention any specific allegations.
Patton also said that any voter registration fraud, which is a federal offense, "will be brought to our attention, and we will take action."
Noren said there were not any major problems reported to her office. She said applicants might send in duplicate registration forms, but most of the time this is because they are not sure if they are properly registered. With many organizations soliciting registration on the streets, some of those forms might not have made it to the office.
Noren said she told people who were uncertain if their registration form was received to send a new registration form.
"It's better to be safe than sorry," she said.
Other kinds of complications can arise when students move to Boone County and register in their hometown as well as with their new address. Each day, Noren's office checks their database and notifies the second location of a duplicate registration.
However, Noren said these issues should not arouse concern.
"It's purely unintentional," she said.
