NICAR Database Library

Source	National Technical Information Service
Size	8 GB
Dates in Collection	1937-Second quarter, 2008
Cost: For dataslices, please see our order form	50-200 market or circulation below 50,000: $205 26-50 market or circulation 50,000-100,000: $350 Top 25 market or circulation over 100,000: $525

About the Data:

The Social Security Death Master File (DMF), obtained from the National Technical Information Service, is the most complete -- but not entirely complete and definitely not error-free -- listing of all deaths in the United States since 1937. To be listed, the person must have a Social Security number. It does *not* include any details about the death of a person, but the name, Social Security number, date of birth, date of death (in some cases, only month and year), the state from 1937-February 1988, and ZIP codes of last known residence and location where lump-sum payment made to widow(er) are sent.

Important information: The Social Security Administration goes out of its way to emphasize that it does not guarantee the accuracy of the Death Master File. For good reason -- journalists have identified numerous people who, according to the database, are dead but are in fact alive and well. Often, it's a matter of the SSA mistakenly identifying someone is dead but in fact the person's spouse died. So it's important to verify that someone is in fact deceased before stating so in an article.

STORIES AND TIPSHEETS FROM THE IRE RESOURCE CENTER:
To order copies one or more of following stories call the IRE RESOURCE CENTER at 573-882-3364 and give them the FILE NUMBER or TIP SHEET NUMBER. The cost is 15 cents per page for IRE members.

• Story No. 18192: The Atlanta Constitution looks at the existing and the potential scope of voting errors and fraud in Georgia. The investigation finds that "the actual number of ballots cast by the dead is fairly small - 5,412 in the past 20 years," but "the ranks of potential dead voters have grown dramatically in recent years." The story analyses the most common errors in voting records and the loopholes in some election laws. The report also describes the voter identification requirements.
• Story No. 21805: This CAR investigation of voting records and Social Security death records found that deceased residents voted in the primary election in 2003. It was also found that thousands of dead people remain as registered voters on the voter rolls. State and local officials say this can create an 'opportunity for ghostly corruption.'
• Story No. 22767: New York's new statewide database of registered voters contains as many as 77,000 dead people on its rolls. As many as 2,600 of them have cast votes from the grave, according to a Poughkeepsie Journal computer-assisted analysis. The analysis was examined the potential for errors and fraud in New York's three-month-old database. No fraud was found however errors had been made.

Record layouts and samples are attached below
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Attachment	Size
dmf.zip	11.5 KB
dmf_layout.txt	760 bytes