April 11, 2006

Registrar files list 240-year-old voter

"Local pollster Raul Furlong said he couldn't believe his eyes when he recently began reviewing the Registrar of Voters' demographic data on age groups in the lead-up to today's 50th Congressional District special election.

The data showed that among the 353,000 registered voters living in the 50th Congressional District, 5,677 of them were 106 years old.

One was 240 years old.

Furlong said Monday the law prohibits him from releasing the name of the decidedly senior citizen, without getting permission from the registrar's office. Registrar officials said Monday that due to a heavy schedule, they would not have time to locate the person's name in their database nor grant a release to Furlong for him to release it.

"My first reaction was that I knew North County was wealthy, but not so wealthy that they could live forever," said Furlong, president of El Cajon-based polling and marketing firm Datamar, Inc.

If there were that many 106-year-olds living in the district, the 50th would have more people of that age than the entire country.

An official with the U.S. Census Bureau said Monday the most recent census in 2000 showed 3,521 people that old living in the United States, 356 in California and just 30 in San Diego County.

San Diego County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas said Monday that if there are any 240-year-olds living in the county, " I'd like to meet them ---- I bet they would have lots of interesting stories."

He said there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the database showing so many very senior citizens in North County. Up until about five years ago, when people filled out voter registration applications, they were not required to declare their date of birth. In those cases, registrar's officials would use the default date of 1900 in updating the database, Haas said.

"These people have been on file for years and years," he said."

You can read the story here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at April 11, 2006 08:26 AM