GAO-01-560R Voting Age Populations

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548

March 23, 2001

The Honorable Christopher S. Bond

United States Senate

Subject: Comparison of Voting Age Population to Registered Voters in the 40 Largest

U.S. Counties

Earlier this month, you introduced S. 528, the “Safeguard the Vote Act.” Section 3 of

that legislation would require states and localities to purge voter rolls if they discover

that the number of registered voters exceeds the number of eligible voting age

residents. You asked us to compare data on the number of registered voters for the

largest counties in the United States with estimates of voting age populations for

those jurisdictions.

The enclosed table provides the data for the 40 largest counties. As you will see,

none of the counties have voter registration numbers that exceed the number of

eligible voting age residents.

To determine the largest U.S. counties and their voting age populations, we used 1998

population estimates from the Census Bureau–based on the 1990 census–to estimate

voting age populations (“1990 to 1999 Annual Time Series of County Population

Estimates by Selected Age Groups”). To estimate voting age population, we

subtracted the estimate of population 17 years and younger from the total population

estimate for each county. We obtained the number of registered voters for these

counties from Election Data Services (EDS), a political consulting firm specializing in

election administration and the analysis and presentation of census and political data.

EDS obtained these data directly from the counties. For Milwaukee County, EDS did

not have data, so we obtained the number of registered voters from the Wisconsin State

Board of Elections. The latest comparable data sets are for 1998; although the

Census Bureau has population data based on the 2000 census, EDS had not made its

data on the numbers of registered voters for the 2000 election available when we did

this analysis.

If you have any questions about this analysis, please call me on (202) 512-9110.

Wendy Ahmed was responsible for the data gathering and analysis for this report.

David Alexander and Kristeen McLain supported the effort.
Page 2 GAO-01-560R Voting Age Populations

We are sending copies of this letter to Senator Mitch McConnell, Chairman, and

Senator Christopher Dodd, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Rules and

Administration, and to other interested Members and committees. This letter will

also be available on GAO’s home page at http:www.gao.gov.

Sincerely yours,

Norman Rabkin

Managing Director

Tax Administration and Justice

Enclosure
Enclosure Enclosure

Page 3 GAO-01-560R Voting Age Populations

Total Voting Age Population and Registered Voters for 40 Largest Counties

County

Voting age

population for

1998

Number of

registered

voters in 1998 Percent

Los Angeles County, CA 6,702,638 3,854,817 58%

Cook County, IL 3,843,111 2,625,022 68

Harris County, TX 2,283,210 1,755,809 77

San Diego County, CA 2,046,497 1,324,482 65

Orange County, CA 2,021,616 1,173,732 58

Maricopa County, AZ 2,020,424 1,345,370 67

Kings County, NY 1,644,730 1,207,419 73

Miami-Dade County, FL 1,614,738 832,234 52

Wayne County, MI 1,553,202 1,370,052 88

Queens County, NY 1,548,372 978,557 63

Dallas County, TX 1,491,866 1,146,673 77

King County, WA 1,283,041 1,005,074 78

New York County, NY 1,263,481 998,105 79

Santa Clara County, CA 1,233,716 726,410 59

Broward County, FL 1,163,334 817,403 70

Middlesex County, MA 1,113,607 865,056 78

San Bernardino County, CA 1,104,128 664,022 60

Philadelphia County, PA 1,068,992 960,206 90

Cuyahoga County, OH 1,051,442 889,418 85

Alameda County, CA 1,050,893 714,134 68

Riverside County, CA 1,034,075 597,078 58

Suffolk County, NY 1,023,532 826,659 81

Nassau County, NY 1,010,072 867,606 86

Allegheny County, PA 996,674 861,511 86

Tarrant County, TX 981,487 814,547 83

Bexar County, TX 954,901 818,370 86

Oakland County, MI 891,354 867,144 97

Clark County, NV 850,922 562,557 66

Sacramento County, CA 846,787 600,499 71

Bronx County, NY 839,530 640,279 76

Palm Beach County, FL 814,685 613,058 75

Hennepin County, MN 811,258 709,455 87

Franklin County, OH 770,672 657,232 85

St. Louis County, MO 756,207 704,907 93

Erie County, NY 711,056 600,958 85

Fairfax County, VA 703,252 531,456 76

Westchester County, NY 697,449 529,967 76

Hillsborough County, FL 685,215 463,972 68

Contra Costa County, CA 683,040 485,910 71

Milwaukee County, WI 676,857 605,653 89

 Source: GAO compilation of data from Election Data Services and the U.S. Census Bureau.

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