Voter-registration records across the country are inaccurate, out of date or duplicates, according to a new report from the Pew Center. New Jersey election officials say that’s not the case here.

The state has one of the most robust voter registration systems, according to Robert Giles, director of the New Jersey Division of Elections.

“We are linked in with motor vehicles, the social security administration, state corrections office, the parole board…and so we have these voter files bounce against all these other files to give us the most up to date information.”

He says the 1993 voter registration act still makes it difficult to remove someone from the voting rolls.

“Unless they have a death certificate or proof that they’ve moved, they need to miss two presidential elections before they can be totally removed and that can take up to eight years.”

New Jersey also cross-checks sample ballots with the post office.

“So if we get a sample ballot back we can look up to see if that person has moved to a different county, maybe they don’t live there anymore and we can make corrections that way in our system.”

But Giles agrees with Pew’s solution to create a multi-state database to give officials records from other states.

“Its just a matter of getting all the states on board and making that database usable in a way where we can remove voters…we don’t want them to sit on our rolls for four years.”

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