The piece by The Hill opinion contributor Miriam Gray discusses the issue of black and Latino voters who are absent or with incorrect information in voter databases in the United States. According to a recent study from Stanford University, about 24.76 million blacks and Latinos are in this situation, which makes them inaccessible. In contrast, only 18% of whites are absent or with incorrect information in the databases.

The author argues that finding these missing voters could determine the outcome of the 2024 election, citing as an example Joe Biden’s victory in swing states by very narrow margins in 2020. She explains that voter data providers supplement government lists with demographic and consumer information, but this practice perpetuates civic exclusion as absentee voters in the databases are not contacted about elections.

In addition, incorrect data distorts propensity scoring algorithms, which causes campaigns not to contact voters categorized as unlikely to vote. Gray also highlights the human bias present in the creation of these databases, citing an example where a company claimed to be able to predict a person's race solely based on their name and address.

The text mentions two alternative approaches used by organizations to find absentee voters in the databases. The first involves supplementing the databases with the help of volunteers who add contact information for friends and family. The second, as the New Georgia Project already does, is to ditch arbitrary “propensity” vote score cuts and focus on voters with “high opportunity for civic engagement”, who will become civically active if people invest in them.

It argues that it should not just be the responsibility of nonprofits to fix voter databases while traditional campaigns ignore them. The author calls on political data providers, people working in campaigns, donors and political campaigns, and original sources of voter information to take a more active stance in creating an inclusive and transparent democracy.

In short, the text addresses the exclusion of black and Latino voters from U.S. voter databases, underscoring the importance of finding these absentee voters to ensure a truly representative democracy. It stresses the need for transparency on the part of political data providers and calls for action by political campaigns, donors, and voter information sources to correct this inequality.