Debate Desk
Is Cleaning Up Voter Rolls Just a Voter Purge Meant to Silence People?
Federal law requires states to maintain accurate rolls, and removing people who have died or moved, by a lawful process, protects every voter's ballot.
The claim
Critics say that removing names from the rolls disenfranchises eligible voters who are removed by mistake or because they skipped a few elections, and that "purges" fall hardest on minorities and the poor.
The answer in three points
- Accurate rolls are required by law. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires states to make a reasonable effort to remove the names of people who have died or moved away, and it spells out a process for doing so, including notices and waiting periods.
- Inflated rolls cause trouble. Names of people who have moved or died remain on the lists and can raise questions about accuracy, produce mailings to wrong addresses and open the door to errors. A clean list makes elections run smoothly and removes doubts.
- The law protects voters. Under the federal rules, a registrant cannot be removed for failing to vote alone and must be sent a notice and given time to respond. The Supreme Court upheld Ohio's process in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute (2018), by a vote of 5 to 4.
A system that keeps the rolls accurate and gives every voter a way to correct errors serves everyone. Checking your own registration before an election takes only a few minutes.
The numbers
- The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires states to conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove ineligible voters because of death or change of residence, according to the text of the statute.
- The Supreme Court decided Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute in 2018 and held that Ohio's supplemental process was consistent with federal law.
- The Pew Center on the States reported in 2012 that about 1.8 million deceased people were listed as voters, and about 2.75 million people had registrations in more than one state, according to its study.
What they will say next
"Eligible voters get caught." Mistakes happen, and good systems allow a voter to correct the record and vote, including through same-day registration or provisional ballots. Systems should be tested and transparent.
"Use of 'use it or lose it' is unfair." The law does not allow removal for failure to vote alone. It allows removal after notice and silence over time, which is a different matter.
"The goal is to keep opponents from voting." A neutral, uniform process applied to all registrants answers that charge, and observers from both parties can watch it.
"Roll maintenance is rarely needed." The Pew findings showed that the problem is large enough to deserve regular care.
A clean list protects the vote of every eligible citizen from errors and doubt.
"Election officials make mistakes in matching names." They do, and strict matching rules, notices and a chance to correct protect voters. The process is built to reduce those errors.