Comparing Votes to Voters in Pennsylvania

Those following the Biden election fraud conspiracy theories will be familiar with the claim made by a group of Republican Pennsylvania legislators that there were more votes than voters in the election. President Trump himself tweeted it, putting the number at 205,000.

The (exaggerated number) comes from comparing the Pennsylvania Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors (SURE). It would make sense on the surface that the number of people who voted as recorded in the state voter registration system should equal the number of votes cast. The problem is that the Vote totals are carefully counted and certified, and the SURE database is something that appears to be aggregated over time, and not up to date.

I purchased a copy of the SURE data released on December 28, 2020 and I found that it’s still being updated, based on the record change dates in the file for people who voted in the 2020 presidential election. Here is the recent record change summary:

Record change dates for Pennsylvania SURE data for persons recorded as voting in the 2020 Presidential Election

I looked at those voters in SURE that voted in the 2020 election and compared it to the current (January 1, 2021) unofficial election results from the Secretary of State’s website and found that at the county level, there were sometimes more votes than voters, and sometimes more voters than votes. In short, the two databases really don’t correspond well. My results are here.