Figures Showing Huge Jump in Ferguson Voter Registration are Very InaccurateBy Jessica Lussenhop Tue., Oct. 7 2014 at 1:00 PM
In a statement released early this afternoon, Senator Rita Heard Days, Democratic director of the St. Louis County Election Board, admitted that her office released wildly inflated figures in response to press inquiries about how many new voters have registered from Ferguson.
Less than a week ago, Days' office reported that 3,287 brand new voters registered in Ferguson after the shooting death of Michael Brown on August 9. The figures seemed to show an energized voter base and the promise of political change in Ferguson -- the current mayor James Knowles was elected with only 1,324 votes back in April.
But according to her latest release, Days' office is now putting that figure much, much lower -- it seems only 128 new voters have registered in Ferguson.
"Turns out that was an incorrect report that we were using," she told Daily RFT.
Days said that the much larger figure came from something called the "voter summary report" which she thought was a measure of all new registrations coming in. But after looking into it further, she said the "exorbitantly high number for the city of Ferguson...just did not jive." After consulting with the Missouri Secretary of State's office, Days said she realized that the 3,000 figure is actually a tally of the total number of interactions with Ferguson residents that had anything to do with their voter registration, so that included changes of address and other alterations to records. When broken down by type of activity, she saw that the actual figure is only 128 new registered voters.
"Let me apologize for that," Days told Daily RFT. "There's really no excuse, it's just an explanation."
...more at linkhttp://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyr ... curate.php