The Democratic Party of Georgia recently warned the Secretary of State’s office that it believes the process of making so many voters inactive is so imminent before a presidential election violates federal voting laws.
“It may make you believe that you are no longer eligible to vote in the presidential election,” said Matt Weiss, a Democratic lawyer. “Why does this have to happen right now, before a major federal election? Anything that will increase the confusion among voters should be avoided. ”
But election officials say non-deliverable mail is a strong indication that voters no longer live at their registered addresses and should only be allowed to vote where they currently live.
The state is required to maintain accurate voter lists, and voters are regularly relocated to inactive status. Then the Secretary of the State Office cancels inactive voter registrations every two years, in odd-numbered years.
This round of making voters inactive was triggered by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s decision to send absentee ballots to 6.9 million active voters in April.
Director of State Elections Chris Harvey sent a memo to election officials in July saying that state law requires them to send notices to voters whose present ballot requests were not returned by the Postal Service.
“The intention is to try to keep the voter turnout accurate,” said Kristi Royston, the election manager in Gwinnett County. “It’s not that an inactive voter can not vote. Any action the voter takes on the inactive role will return them to active. ”
Details on how many emails voters from Georgia were unable to deliver will be compiled in the coming weeks.
“Before we release information like this, we want to make sure it’s accurate,” said Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs. “Many counties are still certifying their elections, and their data personnel are focused on that.”
The Democratic Party said federal law should prevent the process of making these voters inactive this year. The National Legislative Registration Act requires states to complete each program with the goal of systematically canceling voter registrations at least 90 days before a federal election. The November 3 presidential election is less than 80 days away.
Whether the NVRA bans voters inactivated in this way is an undecided legal question, said Myrna Pérez, director of the Voting and Election Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School.
“It’s definitely not a preferred practice, and the chances of confusion and adding to the work of election officials make this an invisible decision,” Pérez said.
Mail may not be deliverable even if a voter has not been relocated and an eligible voter remains, she said. For example, there may be a typo in an address, or she may have seen reports of postal workers not delivering mail because of a dog in the yard.
Becoming an inactive voter begins the process of being removed from Georgia’s voter rolls.
Voters can be considered inactive when their email is returned, they fill in a form of address, if they have no contact with election officials or vote for five years. Their registrations will then be deleted if they miss the next two federal general elections.
In December, state election officials canceled 287,000 voter registrations. There are now more than 7.4 million people registered to vote in Georgia.
Check your voter registration
Georgia residents can sign up to vote online, at provincial polling stations or if they get their driver’s license.
Anyone can find out if they are registered to vote by visiting the My Voter Page at www.mvp.sos.ga.gov.
New voters can register to vote in the presidential election until the state’s deadline for voter registration is October 5th.
