ATLANTA — Thursday the state said it would restore 22,000 voters purged from its voting list earlier this week – but critics said it shortchanges nearly a 100, 000 more.
The two sides were in federal court Thursday shortly after Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced the restoration.
In court, state officials acknowledged that the restored voters resulted from issues raised by Fair Fight Action’s lawsuit asking the state to stop a voter purge announced in October.
The question is whether voters who don’t vote should be eliminated from lists of active voters. State officials say federal law requires the state to do exactly that – in order to keep accurate records of who votes where.
“The problem is we don’t really know if you still live there,” Raffensperger told 11Alive Monday. “And that’s what we want to make sure [of], that you still live in that residence. And that’s all we’re asking is that you just fill [out a piece of mail sent by the state] and say hey, I still live here. Check the box, send it back.”
But figuring out which voters are deemed ineligible to vote can be complicated.
Under a new state law, the state said it can legally cancel voter registrations if the voter hasn’t voted in two November general elections – and has had no contact with election officials for five calendar years before that. That’s nine to 10 years, officials said.
However, the state said some of the cancellations were applicable from a previous state law – shortening the timeline by two years. Those cancellations were among those restored Thursday.
Fair Fight said it has identified 120,561 purged voters who have voted since 2010. Fair fight asked US District Judge Steve Jones to restore them. Jones said he would rule next week.
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