Election officials in Maine were able to reduce their voter rolls to 882,337 by June of this year, still giving the state one of America's highest registration rates at 93 percent. Meanwhile, Alaska's lists deteriorated to the point that by October of this year the state was 108 percent registered.
"I'm very happy to pass this honor over to Alaska," Wyke said. "Our problems really were based in Maine law not requiring any kind of systematic purging of the voter rolls."
The federal registration act ? often called the Motor Voter Bill since it authorized citizens to register while applying for drivers licenses ? provided a mechanism to remove apparently inactive voters. But many local election supervisors are overwhelmed by the task of regularly preparing lists of voters who have not cast ballots in recent elections.
Maine and Alaska apparently are the first states ? at least in modern times ? to report more voters than eligible population. But the inaccuracies are even more apparent at the local level.
