Georgia's Secretary of State Says More Than 100,000 Names Will Be Removed From State's Voter Record

By Sarah al-Arshani, Business Insider

19 June 21

eorgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced that more than 100,000 names will be removed from the state's voter registration records.

This mass removal, or voter "purge," mainly targeted those who filled out a change of address form (about 67,000) or had election mail returned (about 34,000), the AP reported. Voters can also be purged if they are declared "inactive" meaning they have not participated in an election in a certain number of years.

The purge accounts for 1.3% of the state's 7.8 million registered voters, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported. Eligible voters who are removed can re-register to vote.

"Making sure Georgia's voter rolls are up to date is key to ensuring the integrity of our elections," Raffensperger said in a statement. "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."

Abrams was the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate who lost to Kemp. After that election, Abrams founded Fair Fight Action, a voting rights organization.

The purge comes after Gov. Brian Kemp signed a controversial omnibus voting bill in March that made sweeping changes to the state's voting rules. The bill was criticized by several civil rights groups and led to several federal lawsuits.

The state has also been a battleground over the results of the 2020 election. President Joe Biden won the state of Georgia, and two Democratic senators were also elected in a run-off election in January. The state voted for former President Donald Trump in 2016. Trump and his team had made repeated efforts to try to dispute the state's election results, and Raffensperger was censured by his own party for stating Biden won the state.

Raffensperger said this is the first "major cleaning of the voter rolls" since 2019, and he's "made it a priority to continue with the list maintenance process" since the 2020 presidential election. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the previous purge of 300,000 voters was not a complete victory. While a federal judge at the time agreed to have those who had been inactive for over eight years removed from the voter records, Raffensperger had to reinstate 22,000 voters who had voted a little while before the cutoff date.

"The last time Secretary Raffensperger conducted a massive voter purge, he was forced to admit 22,000 errors - 22,000 Georgia voters who would have been kicked off the rolls were it not for Fair Fight Action's diligence. We'll be reviewing the list thoroughly and reaching out to impacted voters," said Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of Fair Fight Action.