North Carolina: Fountain of youth or massive voter fraud? (Updated)

At this point during the 2010 election, more than 2600 people over the age of 110 had allegedly already voted in North Carolina.  How was that possible?

Perhaps in an effort to promote North Carolina as one of the healthiest States in the Nation, this latest voter twist comes to us from Susan Myrick of the Civitas Institute in North Carolina--not to be confused with Rep. Sue Myrick of NC who is unrelated. In a radio interview with local WBT Anchor Tara Servatious, Susan reports that she has been keeping track of the number of votes in North Carolina of individuals over the age of 110 years and apparently we have quite a few, over 410 of the 110 year olds--to be exact-- actually voted via absentee ballot on October the 28th. Yes indeed, now it would appear that good ole NC has the market cornered on the Centenarian vote.

At latest count, Susan has garnered a total Absentee Ballot vote of over 2,660 people over the age of 110. Someone contact the Guiness Book and warm up the Ford, the Fountain of Youth exists and its right here in lovely NC. It's no wonder people are moving here in droves--maybe the use of tobacco isn't such a bad thing after all? But, on a more serious note, with all of the irregularities going on all over the place, we can now begin to wonder about a few things.

Fast forward to 2012.  According to reports circulating around the internet, there are similar rumors of voter fraud already popping up in North Carolina with two weeks left until Election Day.

But is this really the case?  North Carolina's News & Record now debunks the rumors:

When local elections boards don't have birthday data for a registered voter they generally plug in Jan. 1, 1900. Charlie Collicutt, deputy director of Guilford County's BOE, told me this morning that the county has about 3,500 of these voters on its active registration rolls. Prior to 1960, Collicutt said, the standard voter registration form didn't ask people for their birthday.

"It just said, 'are you 18?'" he said.

Many of the people who registered back then haven't moved or otherwise interacted with the elections office in a way that the birthday question would be cleared up as a matter of course, Collicutt said. The board has their addresses, but not phone numbers. There has been some attempt to add birthday information when folks come in to vote, but it hasn't been a high priority for busy precinct workers, Collicutt said.

Author's note: This post has been edited & updated to reflect new reports and to clarify timeline.