The battleground state of Georgia is undertaking an effort to remove about 478,888 inactive or ineligible voters from the rolls, which includes people who appear to have moved out of the state, or are no longer at the address of their registration. 

Georgia has been the most contested southern state in recent years, which makes election integrity issues paramount, as it has been among a handful of swing states nationally. 

Even with a Republican governor and GOP-controlled state Legislature, the Peach State also has two Democrat U.S. senators. President Donald Trump carried Georgia in 2016 and 2024 but fell short in 2020 to Joe Biden. 

“Georgia’s voter rolls are the cleanest in the nation thanks to the diligent partnerships we’ve made to secure our elections,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said in a public statement. “Clean voter rolls mean clean elections. My promise to Georgia voters is elections that are free, fair, and fast—and we’re doing just that.”

Raffensperger’s office sent mailers to 477,883 state registrants who have been in Inactive Status for the November 2022 and 2024 general elections. This is the largest mailing of its kind in eight years, according to the secretary of state’s office. 

The office credited its partnership with the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, for identifying the inactive registrants. However, many states withdrew from ERIC in recent years, as Republican secretaries of state alleged left-leaning influence and conflicts of interest within the organization. 

The state also used national change of address data with the United States Postal Service, and with Georgia’s Department of Driver Services.

In Georgia, the state identified 180,473 voter registration records that were originally identified as having moved out of state through Georgia’s membership in ERIC. Georgia began sending cross-state confirmation mailers in 2021. 

Another 105,848 voter records were identified as having no contact with their elections office in five calendar years, which means no voting, no submitting an updated registration application, or not having other activity with their elections office.

Also, 104,535 voter registration records were identified because the local elections office received undeliverable mail when attempting to mail to the address on record.

The state identified another 87,027 records as having filed a change of address. 

As detailed in my book “The Myth of Voter Suppression,” over the past year, law enforcement and watchdog groups have found numerous cases of states keeping the names of residents who moved, or of dead people on the voter rolls that in some cases are recorded as having cast votes. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires states to keep updated voter registration lists. 

The removal has prompted criticism, with the state’s largest newspaper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, asserting in a headline, “Georgia begins one of the largest voter registration cancellations in history.” 

The Washington-based group Issue One quipped,“The right to vote shouldn’t come with an expiration date.”

But all the registered voters were sent two notifications by mail to tell them they were inactive, and given 40 days to respond before being removed from voter registration lists. The inactive voters had the option of responding online to Online Voter Registration, their My Voter Page, by completing and returning the postcard included with the cancellation mailer, or completing a Georgia voter registration application and returning it to their local elections office.

Georgia is tied for third place on The Heritage Foundation’s Election Integrity Scorecard. The states of Arkansas and Tennessee are tied for first place, each with a score of 91. Georgia scores the same as Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama, each scoring 83. The score is based on several categories. Georgia scores 22 out of a possible 28 in the “Accuracy of Voter Registration Lists” category. 

Georgia gained significant national attention for an election reform bill passed in 2021 that included expanding voter ID to mail voting. Democrats, including former President Biden and twice losing gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, attacked Georgia election reforms, such as extending voter ID requirements, “Jim Crow 2.0,” and “voter suppression.”

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