Georgia officials want to remove nearly 102,000 voters from rolls. Are you one?
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office has published a list of nearly 102,000 voters who are at risk of being removed from state rolls unless they take action.
Of the 101,789 “obsolete and outdated voter files” to be removed, state officials allege 67,286 were associated with a National Change of Address form submitted to the U.S. Postal Service; 34,227 had election mail returned to sender; and the remaining 276 had no contact with elections officials for at least five years.
In each of these cases, the voter had no contact with elections officials directly or through the state’s Department of Driver Services for two general elections, state officials said in a news release.
Georgia’s most populous county, Fulton, has 12,003 voters at risk of being removed — the largest number on the list — followed by Cobb (8,941 voters) and Gwinnett (8,118 voters).
Columbus’ Muscogee County has 2,067 voters at risk of being removed, and neighboring Harris County has 284. Macon-Bibb has 1,462 voters on the list and neighboring Houston County has 1,931, according to data provided by the Secretary of State’s office.
Cancellation notices will be mailed to voters on the list and those who respond within 40 days will have their registration switched back to active. Anyone who is removed could register again, election officials told the Associated Press.
First major removal since 2019
Outside of monthly removals for deaths or felony convictions, this is the first major removal since 2019 when Raffensperger sought to eliminate roughly 300,000 voters. Fair Fight, a voting rights group founded by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, sued to stop a portion of the removals.
During the lawsuit, Georgia election officials reinstated 22,000 voters, citing an error in the way their voting history had been screened. In all, 287,000 were removed in 2019.
In a statement Friday, Raffensperger said making sure the state’s voter rolls were up to date is “key to ensuring the integrity of our elections.”
“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,” he said. “Bottom line, there is no legitimate reason to keep ineligible voters on the rolls.”
To see if you are included on this list, use the search tool below to search by name or county of residence. Street address information is redacted by McClatchy News to protect privacy. If you are viewing the table on a mobile device, tap just about the red search button to filter results by name or county.
This story was originally published June 21, 2021 at 3:27 PM.