There are many good reasons for states to update their voter rolls in preparation for elections, but a new report contended many are too zealous about it, jeopardizing some people’s right to vote.
When people die or move out-of-state, their names may be removed from voter rolls. However, the report from the democracy and economy think tank Dēmos found more than 19 million voters were “purged” from the rolls between the 2020 and 2022 general elections, and said more than one-quarter were dropped for flawed reasons, like inactivity.
Angela Hanks, chief of programs for Dēmos, said they evaluated 10 states’ voter removal laws and safeguards. Michigan scored 52% for its removal policies.
“The impact is often disproportionately on voters of color, on naturalized citizens, and on other marginalized or underrepresented communities,” Hanks pointed out. “That is really why we are looking into this, is because when states pursue these flawed practices, it means that people who are eligible to vote can’t vote, and that is a problem for our democracy.”
Eighty of Michigan’s 83 counties voted to pass Proposal 3 in 2018, by the advocacy group Promote the Vote. It allows for same-day voter registration along with other voting access in the state, indicating widespread support for increasing access to the ballot.
Purging practices vary by state, and the Dēmos report finds no state has a great model to prevent erroneously removing eligible voters.
Hanks noted Dēmos also looked at the safeguards to give people some recourse if they were incorrectly removed from the voter rolls.
“And the most harmful are those ‘use it or lose it’ laws — the ‘if you don’t vote in the Federal election, we’ll take you off the rolls,’ — that remove individuals for nonvoting,” Hanks contended. “Those laws are especially concerning, because again they tend to block access to people who can’t make it to every federal election. And those reasons could be really anything.”
Michigan scored well, at 80%, for its voter safeguards. The state allows same-day registration, both during the early voting period and on Election Day, giving voters who may have been erroneously removed from the rolls the ability to cast a regular ballot. But voters cannot do so at the polling place; only at the county clerk’s office.
5 comments
How DARE you remove our illegal voters! How DARE YOU!
How exactly does inactivity disproportionately impact “voters of color, on naturalized citizens, and on other marginalized or underrepresented communities”? Is it really so hard to make it to every other Federal election? One day every 8 years is too much to ask?
And if someone’s dropped from the voter rolls, it’s not at all difficult to re-register. This whole thing is stupid.
Stupid, that is, until you realize the real purpose of wanting these inactive entries left on the voter rolls: ELECTION FRAUD. Once you realize that little twist, the stance of leftist think tanks like Dēmos suddenly start to make a lot more sense…
I’d like to hear how many voters were purged from Wayne Co., Michigan. If active voting is the one of the reasons to keep voters on the rolls, death or moving wouldn’t matter there. For decades Wayne Co. has had precincts with 100% voter turnout. Unless and until Wayne Co. has their voter list reviewed and purged as well as being required to report results on time (and not after every other county so they know how many votes the Dems need to win) Michigan won’t have honest results. “No wide spread voter fraud” as was the clever mainstream media phrase after the last election. Wayne Co. needs to have Federal monitors because Republican poll watchers were not allowed to do their job for the last several elections.
The Federal elections were just as corrupt, if not moreso than the state and local elections. I wonder if the corruption didn’t start at the Federal elections and the state and local fraud were just “happy coincidences” for the local Democrat politicians.
Expecting Federal monitors to actually HELP is silly. I’m not sure what the fix is for this level of corruption, but I’m not sure voting in fraudulent elections is going to be it.
It’s always nice to hear the claims of racism, disenfranchised, blah blah,same old routine.
Yes it’s way too long since Michigan updated voters registration. They’ve gotten away with very shady nonsense in certain areas here for far too long.