Registrar files list 240-year-old voter

By: WILLIAM FINN BENNETT - Staff Writer | Monday, April 10, 2006 9:36 PM PDT ∞

NORTH COUNTY ---- Local pollster Raul Furlong said he couldn't believe his eyes when he recently began reviewing the Registrar of Voters' demographic data on age groups in the lead-up to today's 50th Congressional District special election.

The data showed that among the 353,000 registered voters living in the 50th Congressional District, 5,677 of them were 106 years old.

One was 240 years old.

Furlong said Monday the law prohibits him from releasing the name of the decidedly senior citizen, without getting permission from the registrar's office. Registrar officials said Monday that due to a heavy schedule, they would not have time to locate the person's name in their database nor grant a release to Furlong for him to release it.

"My first reaction was that I knew North County was wealthy, but not so wealthy that they could live forever," said Furlong, president of El Cajon-based polling and marketing firm Datamar, Inc.

If there were that many 106-year-olds living in the district, the 50th would have more people of that age than the entire country.

An official with the U.S. Census Bureau said Monday the most recent census in 2000 showed 3,521 people that old living in the United States, 356 in California and just 30 in San Diego County.

San Diego County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas said Monday that if there are any 240-year-olds living in the county, " I'd like to meet them ---- I bet they would have lots of interesting stories."

He said there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the database showing so many very senior citizens in North County. Up until about five years ago, when people filled out voter registration applications, they were not required to declare their date of birth. In those cases, registrar's officials would use the default date of 1900 in updating the database, Haas said.

"These people have been on file for years and years," he said.

But some of these people have surely died in the ensuing years.

To purge their files of registered voters who have died, the registrar's office does a number of things, Haas said.

Officials cut many names from their rolls after receiving death notifications from county health officials and by carefully tracking obituary notices in local newspapers. Also, when sample ballots arrive at the homes of someone who has died, Haas said, relatives will often call the registrar's office to inform officials of the death. And if sample ballots are repeatedly returned to sender by the U.S. Post office, registrar officials investigate to find out what has become of that person, Haas said.

Across the county, state and nation, registrars of voters have been busy in recent months updating their voter information, after a new federal law took effect on Jan. 1.

In response to alleged irregularities at polling places across the country in the 2000 Presidential elections, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act. One of the provisions in the law requires that when any voter registers for the first time or updates his or her registration, they must provide proof of who they are, by presenting a driver's license or the providing the last four digits of their Social Security number.

A spokeswoman for Secretary of State Bruce McPherson said Monday that McPherson is planning on being in San Diego County tonight to follow the election returns, in part because today's election will be the first one held in the state since the federal law took effect.

Today's special election is being held to pick a temporary replacement for Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who resigned from office late last year after pleading guilty in federal court to tax evasion and taking bribes of more than $2.4 million, in exchange for steering government business to two defense contractors. In March, he was sentenced to serve eight years and four months in a federal prison for those crimes.

If a single candidate wins more than 50 percent of the votes today, he or she will serve out the remainder of Cunningham's term through the end of the year. If no single candidate hits that mark, however, the top vote earners in each party will then compete in a run-off election on June 6. That election will be held in tandem with each party's regularly scheduled primary election. The winners of the primaries will then face off in the November general election, in which voters will select a representative to serve a full two-year term starting in January.

Haas said that even without considering the federal law, his office has been updating its information on those who have not changed their registration in recent years, by cross-referencing voter rolls with Department of Motor Vehicles records.

Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-5426, or wbennett@nctimes.com.

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