Georgia is planning to eliminate approximately half a million voters from its registration rolls in one of the largest registration removals in U.S. history.
Around 455,000 inactive voter registrations will be removed from the state’s registration list this summer, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. More than half of the registrations that are set to be canceled were identified by the Electronic Registration Information Center, which involves 24 states that identify when a voter moves out of state and is no longer eligible to vote, in this case, in Georgia.
“We want to do everything we can within the law to have the cleanest voter list possible,” State Elections Director Blake Evans said.
Under Georgia law, voters become “inactive” when they appear to have moved, such as by filling out change-of-address forms. Their registrations can be canceled if they miss the next two general elections.
This is the first year since ERIC began operations in 2021 that voters who have been designated as “inactive” will be removed.
“ERIC is the best tool out there right now, and it gives us valuable information you can’t get anywhere else,” Evans said.
Of those whose registration will be canceled, ERIC identified 255,000 voters who moved out of state and are therefore ineligible to vote in Georgia elections, according to the outlet.
An additional 100,000 people will have their registration canceled in Georgia because they did not vote in the state in the last nine years. Georgia’s “use it or lose it” law holds that citizens lose their registrations if they have not contacted election officials for five years and miss two general elections.
Another 100,000 registrations that are scheduled for cancellation have been made inactive because ERIC found that mail regarding elections to those voters was returned as undeliverable.
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Voting rights activists in the state said they are concerned that active voters may lose their ability to vote.
“You shouldn’t be taken off the rolls because you didn’t vote,” Helen Butler, executive director of the civil rights organization the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda. “When you look at the voter registration statistics, there are a lot of people registered to vote who just don’t make it to the polls because they’re dissatisfied with the choices. They decide not to vote, and that’s their right.”
