According to the state Board of Elections, their latest purge of voter rolls has removed more than 225-thousand ineligible registrations. Taylor Brown is the agency’s lead counsel. He said the process begins with data from the U.S. Postal Service.
“We get a list of people who are suspected to have moved from the post office, and then we send those people with those addresses postcards to say, ‘Hey, we've heard you might have moved. If so, would you like to vote to update your voter registration?’”
Brown says if they don’t receive a response, they check to see if the person has voted in the last two federal election years – but that’s not what leads to being removed from the list of eligible voters.
“You could have registered 20, 30, 40, years ago and never voted. We don't remove anyone for not voting.”
Brown said they also look to see if the person has gone online to update any part of their voter registration before removing them from the rolls. According to the board’s website, more than 734-thousand ineligible registrations have been removed since 2019. Brown said people who think they’ve been taken off by mistake can contact their county clerk or go to the state Board of Elections website.
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