Georgia begins one of the largest voter registration cancellations in history

Voting rights advocates, who call huge voter cancellations “voter purges,” say such a far-reaching removal effort could inadvertently include some eligible voters who haven’t moved, taking away their ability to vote unless they reregister. Conservative critics say these broad removals don’t go far enough.

Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer for the secretary of state’s office, said he’s nearly 100% confident voters on the cancellation list have moved and are no longer eligible to vote at their prior addresses.

The cancellations will make Georgia’s voter roll “the most accurate list in the country,” he said.

“We are extremely sure these people aren’t here,” Sterling said. “For somebody to say we’re getting rid of voters is almost silly on its face because of how simple it is to register.”

Large-scale cancellations occur in Georgia every odd-numbered year, a regularly scheduled postelection cleanup of the state’s voter registration list.

Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC

Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC

This year’s cancellations are so large — amounting to 6% of Georgia’s 8.4 million registered voters — in part because of the state’s participation in an organization called ERIC, which reports when a voter has registered in another state or filled out a change-of-address form.

This is the first year voter registrations flagged by ERIC in 2021 are eligible for cancellation. Under Georgia law, voters become “inactive” when they appear to have moved. They can be canceled if they miss the next two general elections.

ERIC accounts for more than half of registrations scheduled for removal, including 180,000 people who registered to vote or obtained a driver’s license in another state, as well as 87,000 who changed their addresses.

The rest of the registrations are planned for cancellation because election mail to those voters was returned as undeliverable, or they haven’t participated in elections for roughly 10 years. Georgia has a “use it or lose it” law that cancels dormant registrations based on the assumption those voters have moved.

Nine Republican-run states have quit ERIC based on claims it’s not effective enough, but a bill that would have withdrawn Georgia from the 24-state organization failed this year.

American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia Executive Director Andrea Young said the cancellations jeopardize the rights of legitimate voters who haven’t moved or done anything wrong.

“The state is purging hundreds of thousands of voters even though countless studies have shown that voting by ineligible voters is almost nonexistent,” Young said. “So the state purge doesn’t protect our system, and instead creates the likely outcome that eligible voters will be removed and blocked from casting a ballot.”

All Georgia voters must be registered at least 29 days before each election to be able to cast a ballot. Every voter is also required to produce ID to be able to participate in each election.

“Forcing half a million people off the rolls at once raises serious red flags. We don’t have mandatory voting in America — no one’s rights should expire just for sitting out an election,” said Max Flugrath of the voting rights group Fair Fight Action. “Many won’t realize they’ve been purged until it’s too late. It’s voter suppression by administrative process.”

The cancellation hits Black voters’ registrations at a higher rate than white voters’ registrations, according to an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Black voter registrations account for 32% of cancellations, more than their 31% of all registrants. Meanwhile, white voter registrations make up 45% of cancellations compared to 51% of all registered voters.

Credit: Steve Schaefer

Credit: Steve Schaefer

Most of the cancellations affect voters in metro Atlanta’s core counties of DeKalb, Cobb, Fulton and Gwinnett, areas where voters change residences more often than in rural parts of the state.

Sterling said differences in cancellation rates could be explained by factors such as mobility, homeownership and age.

“We’re making sure that people are in the right place to enhance voter confidence and to allow for proper planning by elections officials,” Sterling said. “We have gone above and beyond, and we do more voter list maintenance than any other state in the country.”

Although California, Texas and other states have also removed millions of outdated voters over the years, Georgia holds the distinction for canceling the most voters at once in July 2017.

In mass cancellations since then, Georgia has removed between 101,000 and 287,000 voters at a time.

The number of proposed cancellations this year increased from election officials’ preliminary estimate in March that there would be 455,000 removals.

Along with a large number of cancellations, Georgia also has one of the highest voter registration rates in the nation, with 91% of the citizen voting-age population signed up as active voters, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Georgia automatically registers eligible voters when they get a driver’s license unless they opt out, and the state also offers online voter registration.

Voters can check their registration status through the AJC’s voter cancellation search tool and find their registration information on the state’s My Voter Page at www.mvp.sos.ga.gov.

Planned cancellations

180,000: Voters who appear to have moved based on voter registration and driver’s license data.

106,000: Voters identified by the secretary of state’s office as having not participated in elections or had contact with election officials for roughly 10 years.

105,000: Voters whose election mail was undeliverable.

87,000: Voters who appear to have moved based on National Change of Address information provided by the U.S. Postal Service.