In the year 1513, the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León embarked on an expedition in search of the legendary Fountain of Youth. He was convinced that there was a spring hidden within the New World whose waters possessed the power to reverse aging. However, history tells us that he never discovered this elusive fountain.
As it turns out, he was looking in entirely the wrong location.
Instead of focusing on Florida, he should have directed his attention to 151 West Street in Annapolis, the home of the Maryland State Board of Elections. According to the state’s voter records, Maryland may have quietly emerged as the world’s hub for extraordinary human longevity.
Currently, the oldest verified living person globally is 116 years old, according to widely acknowledged demographic records. This is indeed remarkable, highly unusual, and statistically astonishing.
But for Maryland? It’s just another day.
Under the diligent supervision of Election Administrator Jared DeMarinis, the state’s voter rolls allegedly feature 73 registered voters who are older than the oldest living individual on Earth. Yes, that’s right: seventy-three.
The state’s oldest registered voter? A Josephine Smith from Silver Spring, born in April 1894, making her an astounding 131 years old. It seems Montgomery County has transformed into a wonderland of medical miracles.
In fact, about 70 percent of Maryland’s 308 voters aged 110 or older reside in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties. Could it be that those areas offer some unique advantages? Perhaps it’s related to their zoning regulations or the benefits of the Purple Line.
Or maybe — and bear with me on this — there is something else occurring.
Let’s narrow the focus to a simpler topic: my own Chevy Chase precinct. Not the entire county, just one single precinct.
Starting with my own apartment building, according to Maryland’s voter rolls, my “building neighbor,” Frank C. Nall, is listed as 115 years old. Sadly, he passed away and was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in 2003. Moreover, within the same building, we have a 117-year-old Dorthea Brennan? She died in 2013. And what about Murray Volkman? He would be an energetic 114, but as the records show, he passed away back in 1995.
Consider that for a moment. Murray Volkman has inexplicably remained on Maryland’s voter rolls for over thirty years after his death. Thirty years. This is far from a simple clerical mistake; it speaks to an underlying institutional mindset.
Interestingly, my precinct reportedly has more “super-aged” voters than the entire city of Baltimore. Either we have stumbled upon a unique gene pool of longevity that science has yet to decipher, or the maintenance protocols of the State Board deserve serious scrutiny.
So, what’s going on elsewhere in my precinct?
To be clear, having outdated registrations does not inherently mean that fraudulent voting is occurring. However, the overall credibility of the system suffers when the rolls are inflated with unrealistic registrations. This erosion of trust is entirely self-inflicted.
This leads us to the legal landscape surrounding these issues. The U.S. Department of Justice has initiated legal action, claiming that there have been failures to maintain voter rolls according to federal standards. The suit specifically names the Maryland State Board of Elections and points to requirements under the National Voter Registration Act to make reasonable efforts to eliminate ineligible voters.
What has been Annapolis’s response? With humility? Acknowledgment of the need for change? Systematic modernization?
No. Instead, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown opts to defend the state’s voting database practices, ominously referencing “federal overreach” and raising privacy concerns.
“Privacy concerns” for “voters” who, in some instances, have not drawn breath since the Clinton administration.
One would think that the removal of a registrant who passed away in 1995 would hardly amount to a constitutional crisis. It seems reasonable that recognizing statistical anomalies should take precedence over discussions of federalism.
The board maintains that list maintenance is complicated. However, a 131-year-old voter is not merely an outlier; it’s a glaring red flag.
If Ponce de León were alive today (and given the Maryland rolls, this is entirely feasible), he might abandon his quest for mythical springs and instead investigate Annapolis’s data retention practices. While medical science strives to extend human life beyond 100 years, Maryland’s voter database appears to have effortlessly transcended biological limits.
This issue transcends partisan lines. Maintaining clean voter rolls is not suppression; it’s responsible governance. Accuracy is not an ideology; it is essential administration. When multiple registrants soar beyond the established thresholds of human longevity, the ideal response should not be defensiveness, but rather a commitment to correction.
Maryland must confront the uncomfortable truth that SBE Administrator Jared DeMarinis has not discovered the Fountain of Youth, and that deceased voters have no place on the voter rolls.
