“When I see that, I see a workflow issue. That is, the DOB is a required field, something has to go in there, and someone wrote the software to default in 1/1/1901, and you could just skip over it when entering the demographic data.”
I agree that’s most likely. But in Texas, our new law will REJECT those applications as unverifiable and people without DOBs (at least the ones that exist) will get a letter in the mail telling them to complete their form.
Just having the computer default this way is a SERIOUS PROBLEM, but the information is there to investigate now, and if the people really do exist and are not otherwise registered, then no issue.
But it does make me wonder as to why people would leave their DOB blank, since I suspect that most people over 2 years old know what it is (or shouldn’t be voting, if they no longer remember it).
If you are generating voters from some public or semi-public data, generally DOB like SS# is not available. This is a smoking gun of generated voters from some list.
I am just speculating (having seen other systems that default in a date) but I agree-this should never have been allowed.
This is likely seen as a feature not a bug for people who wish to execute fraud.
I wonder if it is because if they make up a DOB, then...that is explicit fraud if caught. But allowing a default date and skipping over it, well...that might be a “mistake”.
I have no idea, just speculating.