One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy

by Carol Anderson

The NVRA mandates that election officials update the voter rolls regularly. There are, however, strict guidelines about who is removed, how that is accomplished, and why.16 And on each of these parameters, the GOP has violated not only the spirit of the law but the letter as well. The NVRA outlines that officials can remove someone from the roll of eligible voters if he or she requests it; has had a name change and didn’t notify authorities within ninety days; dies; is convicted of a felony that under state law renders them ineligible to vote; “has moved outside the county of registration or has registered to vote in another jurisdiction”; and after that does not respond to a follow-up inquiry, usually a mailing, from election officials concerning a change in status. Then, and only then, is the process of purging supposed to begin.