Pennsylvania party-switching data was wrong: officials

Pennsylvania party-switching data was wrong: officials
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Human error led to inaccurate numbers on how many voters in Pennsylvania switched parties ahead of the state’s primary, officials said Monday.

The Pennsylvania Department of State released corrected data on Monday.

The department reported in March that 215,000 voters had switched to join the Republican or Democratic parties. The new data show that about 149,000 actually switched parties.

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Pundits had labeled the unusually high surge in party-switching as the “Trump effect,” linking it to the convention-defying campaign of businessman Donald Trump.

“It came to our attention that the numbers we received from the contractors about voters switching party affiliation included figures from 2015,” Secretary of StatePedro A. Cortéssaid in a statement. “As soon as we learned that was the case, we took immediate action, reviewed all current and historical datasets and the numbers have now been corrected.”

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A total of 60,222 voters switched to become Democrats this year, 89,234 became Republicans and 9,573 voters changed their party affiliation to “other.”