{"id":2495,"date":"2019-09-12T21:01:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T21:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/?p=2495"},"modified":"2025-04-28T21:03:05","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T21:03:05","slug":"7-million-voters-purged-nationwide-between-2016-and-2018-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/2019\/09\/12\/7-million-voters-purged-nationwide-between-2016-and-2018-report\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Million Voters Purged Nationwide Between 2016 and 2018: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Brennan Center analysis<\/a> has found that at least 17 million voters were purged nationwide between 2016 and 2018, similar to the numbers discovered between 2014 and 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using data released by the Federal Election Assistance Commission, the Brennan Center found that counties with a history of voter discrimination have continued purging people from the rolls at high rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis phenomenon began after the Supreme Court\u2019s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder<\/em>, a decision that severely weakened the protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore the Shelby County decision, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act required jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to submit proposed changes in voting procedures to the Department of Justice or a federal court for approval, a process known as \u2018preclearance,\u2019\u201d the report\u2019s authors wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Brennan Center first identified this troubling voter purge trend in a major report<\/a> released in July 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the nation heads toward the all-important 2020 election cycle, many said they\u2019re concerned with voter purging and the ever-present threat of voter disenfranchisement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAutomatic voter registration is a great way to be sure that every eligible American is registered to vote,\u201d said Dr. Margaret Groarke, an associate professor of political science at Manhattan College in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhether this prevents voter suppression is complicated by the fact that there are many ways that people suppress the vote,\u201d Groarke said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKey strategies today are over-inclusive voter purges, strict voter ID laws, and making threats that people with unpaid fines or warrants shouldn\u2019t come near the polls,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAutomatic voter registration might counteract the effect of purges, but will do nothing to stop other strategies,\u201d Groarke said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Brennan Center report follows a Center for American Progress analysis<\/a> that examined how conservative lawmakers are suppressing the votes of people of color, young people, and those with disabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From discriminatory voter ID laws in places such as North Dakota, South Carolina, and Michigan to failures to provide early polling places in a majority-black neighborhood in Texas and the freezing of more than 50,000 voter registrations in Georgia, voter suppression is rampant in 2018, according to the CAP report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVoter suppression is widespread again this year, and these efforts from conservative lawmakers largely target people of color, young people, and people with disabilities,\u201d Connor Maxwell, a research associate for Race and Ethnicity Policy at the CAP, said in a news release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDespite these efforts, there are many steps people can take to ensure their vote counts on election day,\u201d Maxwell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voting is a fundamental right for all U.S. citizens, \u201cso we encourage everyone to double-check their voter registration; determine ahead of time whether you need to bring certain materials to the polls; and take advantage of the many voter assistance hotlines if you run into problems,\u201d said Danielle Root, a voting rights manager at the CAP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its report, The Brennan Center noted why voter purges could prove problematic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf a voter moves from Georgia to New York, they are no longer eligible to cast a ballot in the Peach State. As such, they should be removed from Georgia\u2019s voter rolls,\u201d Brennan authors said, as an example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report continued:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSimilarly, voters who have passed away should be removed from the rolls. Reasonable vote list maintenance ensures voter rolls remain up to date. Problems arise when states remove voters who are still eligible to vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStates rely on faulty data that purport to show that a voter has moved to another state. Frequently, these data get people mixed up. In big states like California and Texas, multiple individuals can have the same name and date of birth, making it hard to be sure that the right voter is being purged when perfect data are unavailable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTroublingly, minority voters are more likely to share names than white voters, potentially exposing them to a greater risk of being purged and voters often don\u2019t realize they\u2019ve been purged until they try to cast a ballot on Election Day \u2013 after it\u2019s already too late.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Brennan Center\u2019s report authors said as the 2020 election cycle heats up, election administrators must be transparent about how they\u2019re deciding what names to remove from the rolls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They must be diligent in their efforts to avoid erroneously purging voters, the report\u2019s authors said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd they should push for reforms like automatic voter registration and election day registration which keep voters\u2019 registration records up to date,\u201d the authors wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post originally appeared in The Washington Informer<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Brennan Center analysis has found that at least 17 million voters were purged nationwide between 2016 and 2018, similar to the numbers discovered between 2014 and 2016. Using data released by the Federal Election Assistance Commission, the Brennan Center found that counties with a history of voter discrimination have continued purging people from the rolls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1548,1549,1550],"class_list":["post-2495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-brennan-center","tag-federal-election-assistance-commission","tag-shelby-county-v-holder","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2496,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495\/revisions\/2496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}