102,000 voter registrations to be canceled in Georgia

If you are a Georgia voter and you want to protect your right to vote, you should act now to review the list recently released by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.

The names of nearly 102,000 people who are at risk of having their Georgia voter registrations canceled was made public by Brad Raffensperger on Friday. This serves as a warning to those on the list before they lose their ability to vote next month. However, voters have an opportunity to save their registrations before they are removed.

Election officials are mailing them notifications letters of their pending cancellations, and if voters respond within 40 days, their registrations will be restored to active status. During the last batch of cancellations two years ago, about 4,500 Georgia voters prevented their registrations from being canceled after they received notification letters…

The removals represent 1.4% of Georgia’s 7.8 million registered voters. Cancellations of voter registrations occur every other year as required by state law to remove ineligible or infrequent voters from the state’s voter rolls. Under Georgia’s “use it or lose it” law. Nicknamed voter “purges” by critics of the effort, registered voters are targeted who moved or did not participate in elections for several years. Raffensperger said canceling obsolete registrations will ensure Georgia’s voter lists are accurate.

In 2017, the largest registrations purge in U.S. history, occurred with 534,000 voters registrations eliminated while 287,000 Georgia voter registrations ended up being canceled in 2019.

“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-Gargo, CEO of Fair Fight Action.

A federal judge recently upheld Georgia’s “use it or lose it” law, finding that canceled voters aren’t significantly burdened because they 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.

Most of this year’s cancellations, 101,513, targets voters who filed a change of address request with the U.S. Postal Service or had election mail returned to sender. Another 18,486 registrations were removed last month because they have died, according to information from the Georgia Office of Vital Records and the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a partnership of 30 states to share registration information.

Contrary to claims of dead people voting, there is no record of any deceased voters casting a ballot in the November general election or January runoffs, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.