At MA 4 Fair Elections & Fair Elections Foundation our team of active volunteers participate in many important research projects. Data analysis of voter rolls and related elections data is one area we focus on. The following findings are the result of our analysis of the 2024 Massachusetts General Election data and current voter registrations.
Ballot Variance
More ballots counted than people who voted:
In election after election, Massachusetts publishes a greater number of ballots cast than the corresponding list of people who voted. The same thing happens on a smaller scale at the municipal level.
The Secretary of the Commonwealth publishes certified statewide election results in the weeks after a state election, such as a Presidential or mid-term election, in a document named Public Document 43 (PD43+), which is available online. It combines results from all 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts. The state also consolidates the lists of voters who voted drawn from polling precincts where voters check in to get ballots or from mail-in ballots. Ideally, the number of ballots cast should equal the number of voters, however we've never found that to be the case.
For the 2024 general election, which included the presidential race, the reported total of ballots cast is 3,512,930. The count of people who voted, however, is 3,447,607. That’s a difference of 65,323. Who are the missing voters?
Voter information is widely available for political parties and candidate campaigns so that candidates can see who votes, how often they vote, and whether they are early voters, among other factors. The information helps candidates and political parties target potential voters for upcoming elections. Among the information in the voter records are names and addresses, party affiliation, whether they are active or inactive in the registration system, and in the case of primary elections, whether they pulled a Republican or Democrat or other party ballot.
Similar data can be provided by town or city clerks, but the results are similar – the list of voters doesn't match the number of certified voters.
Ineligible Voters
Thousands of votes cast by registrants failing residency requirements
MA 4 Fair Elections has discovered at least 6,557 registrants in the state’s February 18, 2026 voter registration records who, as a consequence of moving, were not eligible to vote where they were registered yet voted in the November 2024 general election.
Methodology
In the spring of 2026, MA 4 Fair Elections sent a recent voter registration file to a firm, licensed by the United States Postal Service (USPS), that interrogates USPS's National Change of Address (NCOA) data. That firm provided us with information about registrants who moved out of state, and who moved in state to a new community within Massachusetts.
Moved Out of State - Registered: 123,453 individuals in that registration file moved out of state between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2026. Based on certain codes provided by the NCOA analysis that identifies records that may not qualify as moves that we want to consider, for example military moves, volunteers eliminated those that should not be considered, resulting in an edited, out of state move file of 119,658 records.
The 119,658 number represents individuals who moved out of state but were still on the voter registration rolls, with the caveat that there may be some individuals in this number who moved between January and March 2026 and were taken off the voter roll though we expect that number is minimal.
Moved Out of State - Voted: To determine if any of these 119,658 registrants voted in the 2024 general election, volunteers filtered for those who moved prior to October 1, 2024, resulting in 63,289 records. These records were matched to the file of voters in the 2024 general election, provided by the Secretary of State’s office, resulting in 2,667 registrants who moved prior to October 2024 for whom a vote was cast in the 2024 election.
Moved In State – Registered: Title VIII, Chapter 51, Section 1 of Massachusetts General Law states:
“A person otherwise qualified to vote for national or state officers shall not, by reason of a change of residence within the commonwealth, be disqualified from voting for such national or state officers in the city or town from which he has removed his residence until the expiration of 6 months from such removal.”
Using the data provided by the NCOA analysis, MA 4 Fair Elections determined who moved in state from one community to another prior to August 2025, over six months prior to the February 18, 2026, file. This resulted in 64,593 individuals still registered in their prior community more than six months after moving to a new community.
Moved In State – Voted: To determine if any of these 64,593 registrants voted in the 2024 general election, volunteers filtered for those who moved prior to April 1, 2024, resulting in 35,117 records. These records were matched to the file of voters in the 2024 general election, provided by the Secretary of State’s office, resulting in 3,890 people who moved prior to April 2024 for whom a vote was cast in the 2024 election.
In summary, 6,557 votes were cast by registrants who moved out of state and those that moved in state at least six months prior to the November election. These registrants all fail federal and state legislated residency requirements to cast a vote in a general election.
Why This Matters
The National Voter Registration Act (1993) mandates that voter rolls are accurate and current. This is a primary duty of the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office. These results point to serious flaws in voter roll maintenance, highlighting several issues.
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NVRA specifically cites the NCOA as a source election officials should utilize to help maintain their voter registration lists. This is a simple, effective process available to state election officials to help maintain clean voter rolls.
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Applications for ballots are mailed to all registered voters. This means that minimally, almost 200,000 ballot applications were mailed to registered voters who no longer meet residency requirements, setting the stage for casting fraudulent votes.
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If a ballot application is sent to an inactive registrant, return of that application automatically activates the registration, enabling ballots to be cast for non-residents without the scrutiny required for inactive voters.
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Because our NCOA data pull came almost a year and a half after the 2024 general election, our analysis doesn’t include registrants who moved prior to March 2022.
Duplicate Voters
Duplicate – and triplicate – voter registrations:
Volunteers from MA 4 Fair Elections have uncovered at least 12,000 individuals with two or more voter registrations. This finding is based on an analysis of the state’s June 16, 2026 voter registration records, revealing serious gaps in voter roll maintenance.
Methodology:
Using database analysis tools, analysts ran queries to identify duplicate – and sometimes triplicate or quadruple– registrations matching on several combinations of name, date of birth, and registration address. MA 4 Fair Elections volunteers then manually reviewed results, eliminating any matches that appeared uncertain. This resulted in over 12,000 individuals with registration records who have at least one other registration that is likely a duplicate.
Why This Matters:
The National Voter Registration Act (1993) mandates that voter rolls are accurate and current. This is a primary duty of the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office. These results point to serious flaws in voter roll maintenance, highlighting several issues.
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Inadequate safeguards are in place to prevent duplicate registrations.
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Applications for ballots are mailed to all registered voters. This means that two or more ballot applications were mailed to at least 12,000 registered voters, setting the stage for casting fraudulent votes.
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If a ballot application is sent to an inactive registrant, return of that application automatically activates the registration, enabling casting of two votes without the scrutiny required for inactive voters.
Deceased Voters
TBD - Updated Data Analysis Coming Soon...
Records with Defects
Defects in Voter Registration Records
Federal law requires that a state’s roll of registered voters be “current and accurate”, an indication of how important it is to maintain clean voter rolls. Fair Elections Foundation has documented 223,491 defective records in the current voter roll.
Of the many elements in a voter’s record, one of the most problematic when it comes to defects is ‘registration date’ which documents the date on which the voter registered to vote in a community. In many instances, the registration date is far too distant in the past to be valid. In other cases, municipalities have appeared to use ‘placeholder dates’ for voters rather than legitimate dates, resulting in far too many voters sharing the same registration date.
Similar issues occur with birthdates.
While having an erroneous registration date applied to a voter record does not, by itself, indicate any suspicion of wrongdoing or fraud, it is still a defect which inhibits analysis of the voter rolls. It is important to have an accurate registration date, for example, when trying to locate a voter record among the 5.2 million registered voters in Massachusetts.
Here are some examples of registration dates that appear to be defective simply because they occur too often compared to the normal distribution of dates:
Registration Date Count
1995-01-01 80,105
1995-05-15 34,218
1995-04-12 16,282
1988-01-12 15,014
2016-10-19 14,112
2012-10-17 10,766
2016-10-18 9,993
Here are some examples of registration dates too old to be true: yyyy-mm-dd
0111-01-11, 0112-02-22, 0144-06-09, 0181-07-24, 0198-01-01, 0202-05-05, 0204-08-29, 0209-09-16
The Fair Elections Foundation has communicated these violations to state and local authorities and ask that the defects be corrected.
Birthdates are another frequent area where defects abound. Here are some birthdates on the rolls currently that defy explanation.
DOB Age
0937-05-20 1089 yrs 1 mo
0942-01-02 1084 yrs 6 mo
0944-09-08 1081 yrs 9 mo
0946-09-11 1079 yrs 9 mo
0951-05-04 1075 yrs 2 mo
0952-11-04 1073 yrs 8 mo
0957-03-06 1069 yrs 4 mo
0961-08-11 1064 yrs 10 mo
Birthdates are even more important to keep accurate as they are a key identifier when trying to validate people who are qualified to vote.
The Fair Elections Foundation urges state and local officials to scrub their voter rolls in order to comply with federal law.