Georgia Preparing For Large Voter Registration Purge

Election officials in Georgia are planning for one of the largest voter registration purges in U.S. history.

As reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, election officials plan to cancel about 455,000 inactive voter registrations this summer. More than half of the registrations were identified by the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a 24-state organization that reports when a voter has moved out of the state and is no longer eligible to vote there.

The mass cancellation comes as conservatives are continuing to call out the state’s voter registration list, claiming it’s inaccurate and vulnerable to voter fraud.

State Elections Director Blake Evans says the large purge will combat conservative claims that ERIC hasn’t been effective in finding outdated registrations among its 8.3 million registered voters.

“We want to do everything we can within the law to have the cleanest voter list possible. ERIC is the best tool out there right now that gives us valuable information you can’t get anywhere else.”

More from AJC:

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

In response to conservative opposition to ERIC, Republican legislators introduced a bill this year to withdraw Georgia from the organization. Nine other Republican-run states have quit ERIC in recent years, including Alabama, Florida and Texas. The proposal stalled in the Georgia House but could be revived.

Meanwhile, voting rights advocates are concerned that eligible voters could be among those who could be purged.

“You shouldn’t be taken off the rolls because you didn’t vote,” said Helen Butler, executive director for the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a civil rights organization. “When you look at the voter registration statistics, there are a lot of people registered to vote who just don’t make it to the polls because they’re dissatisfied with the choices. They decide not to vote, and that’s their right.”

Georgia Set For One of The Largest Voter Registration Purges in History  was originally published on ronemajicatl2.staging.go.ione.nyc