This archive report was first published on 31 October 2019.
Published on October 31, 2019, a notice was sent to over 300,000 registered voters in Georgia, asking them to confirm their addresses. Those who failed to respond within two additional election cycles will receive a final notice next week, along with a card they must return to avoid being purged.
Georgia's move has been criticized by Fair Fight Action, an advocacy organization founded by Stacey Abrams. The group argues that voters should not lose their right to vote simply because they have not cast recent ballots.
Lauren Groh-Wargo, the organization's chief executive officer, stated, “Voters should not lose their right to vote simply because they have decided not to express that right in recent elections. Anytime a voter purge is conducted, errors can be made, including active voters being wrongly included on the list.”
Georgia's voter purge plan has drawn comparisons to a similar case in Ohio, where the Supreme Court found that the state had not violated federal law. However, Ohio has since struggled to keep its voting rolls accurate, with a review of 235,000 planned purges revealing up to 20 percent of the names were included in error.
Florida is another state that voting rights advocates are closely watching, citing its history of problematic voter purges. The state had previously maintained a lifetime voting ban against people convicted of felonies, but a constitutional amendment approved in 2018 allowed most who had served their sentences to vote.
