Hundreds of thousands of Americans who have moved, died, or gone to prison get kicked off voter lists across the country every year. Voter purges are not necessarily controversial or unusual. States with these policies are removing voters at some of the highest rates in the nation, no matter the reason. And its use is on the rise.ĪPM Reports found that at least nine states - most of them with Republican leadership, including the key battlegrounds of Georgia and Ohio - have purged an estimated hundreds of thousands of people from the rolls for infrequent voting since the 2014 general election. Using someone's decision not to vote as the trigger to remove that person from the rolls is a highly controversial - yet legal - tactic that voting rights advocates say is a potential tool for voter suppression. For instance, the 2016 presidential election was decided in favor of Donald Trump by a total of 77,744 votes in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. While 107,000 people may seem like a small number in a state with a population of 10.4 million, elections have been decided by far smaller margins. The APM Reports analysis is the first estimate of the so-called 'use it or lose it' policy's possible impact in Georgia. If the race is close, the July 2017 purge could affect the outcome. The state has undergone a dramatic influx of African Americans and Latinos whose votes could challenge Republican dominance, and her campaign is trying to turn out people of color, who are more likely to be infrequent voters. Kemp's opponent, Democrat Stacey Abrams, is vying to become the first African-American woman in U.S. 6 to vote in the heated Georgia governor's race, they won't be allowed to cast a ballot. Many of those previously registered voters may not even realize they've been dropped from the rolls.

The purge was noteworthy for another reason: For an estimated 107,000 of those people, their removal from the voter rolls was triggered not because they moved or died or went to prison, but rather because they had decided not to vote in prior elections, according to an APM Reports analysis. Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp, an avid supporter of President Donald Trump who has described himself as a 'politically incorrect conservative,' oversaw the removals eight months after he'd declared himself a candidate for governor. In a single day, more than half a million people - 8 percent of Georgia's registered voters - were cut from the voter rolls. This story was reported in collaboration with WABE in Atlanta, KCUR in Kansas City and Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting.Įven by Georgia standards, the voter purge of late July 2017 was remarkable.

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