(Atlanta) – Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is announcing the first major list maintenance effort following the November 2020 election cycle. 101,789 obsolete and outdated voter files will be removed from Georgia’s voter registration rolls to ensure the state’s voter files are up to date.
“Making sure Georgia’s voter rolls are up to date is key to ensuring the integrity of our elections,” said Raffensperger. “That is why I fought and beat Stacey Abrams in court in 2019 to remove nearly 300,000 obsolete voter files before the November election, and will do so again this year. Bottom line, there is no legitimate reason to keep ineligible voters on the rolls.”
Other than the regular monthly removals of voter files for felony convictions and death, this is the first major cleaning of the voter rolls since 2019. Federal law makes it impossible to conduct list maintenance during general election due to federal mandates before federal elections that force states to rely on voter rolls that may include some obsolete files.
After the 2020 election cycle ended, Raffensperger made it a priority to continue with the list maintenance process. The 101,789 obsolete voter files that will be removed include 67,286 voter files associated with a National Change of Address form submitted to the U.S. Postal Service; 34,227 voter files that had election mail returned to sender; and 276 that had no-contact with elections officials for at least five years. In each of these cases, the individual had no contact with Georgia’s elections officials in any way – either directly or through the Department of Driver Services – for two general elections.
The no contact list includes a relatively small 276 voter files because no-contact notifications were not sent out in 2017 due to a challenge of the Georgia law mandating that process. Secretary Raffensperger successfully defeated the challenge to the law and the process has been resumed.
The Secretary of State’s office also removed 18,486 voter files of dead individuals based on information received from Georgia’s Office of Vital Records and the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), an interstate partnership of 30 states and the District of Columbia focused on maintaining accurate voter rolls. Georgia joined ERIC in 2019, a priority for Secretary Raffensperger. There was no record of any of these individuals having cast a ballot in the November 2020 election or January runoff.
The full list of outdated and obsolete voter files can be accessed HERE
