Good elections begin with a robust voter-registration system

Here are some of the disturbing facts uncovered by the Pew Center study:

 • An estimated 12.7 million voter records don’t show the current address of active voters.

 • Another 12 million records have errors in the address, making it unlikely that mail would reach the voter.

 • About 2.75 million registered voters have active registrations in more than one state.

 • Many of the estimated 24 million suspect voter records include multiple errors.

In this highly mobile society, voter registration can be tricky to keep current. Individual voters have a responsibility to keep their records up to date. But it helps when the state has a centralized database to catch glaring errors.