Brennan Center Releases Voter Purging Report, It's Ugly

Update: CBS News on Voter Purging, Little-Known, Problem-Ridden Process That Could Endanger Your Vote



The Brennan Center for Justice has just released its comprehensive report on massive voter purging, the practice of striking voters from voter rolls.

Download Executive Summary
Download Full Report

Wisconsin is fortunate in that the General Accountability Board has steadfastly refused to prematurely strike voters from its voting rolls, despite the GOP and Attorney General and McCain co-chair J.B. Van Hollen's efforts. In fact, the "Board also decided not to adopt a rule flagging voters on the poll list ...," much less striking a name from the voting rolls.

Writes Myrna Pérez, for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice on the national report:

Voter registration lists, also called voter rolls, are the gateway to voting. A citizen typically cannot cast a vote that will count unless her name appears on the voter registration rolls. [Wisconsin allows voters to register at the polls.] ... Far too frequently, however, eligible, registered citizens show up to vote and discover their names have been removed from the voter lists. States maintain voter rolls in an inconsistent and unaccountable manner. Officials strike voters from the rolls through a process that is shrouded in secrecy, prone to error, and vulnerable to manipulation.

Voter Purges Findings

- Purges rely on error-ridden lists.

- Voters are purged secretly and without notice.

- Bad 'matching' criteria leaves voters vulnerable to manipulated purges.

- Insufficient oversight leaves voters vulnerable to manipulated purges.

The report also includes Policy Recommendations listed below with text:

Policy Recommendations

No effective national standard governs voter purges; in fact, methods vary from state to state and even from county to county. A voter’s risk of being purged depends in part on where in the state he or she lives. The lack of consistent rules and procedures means that this risk is unpredictable and difficult to guard against. While some variation is inevitable, every American should benefit from basic protections against erroneous purges.
Based on our review of purge practices and statutes in a number of jurisdictions, we make the following policy recommendations to reduce the occurrence of erroneous purges and protect eligible voters from erroneous purges.

A. Transparency and Accountability for Purges
States should:

- Develop and publish uniform, non-discriminatory rules for purges.

- Provide public notice of an impending purge. Two weeks before any county-wide or state-wide purge, states should announce the purge and explain how it is to be conducted. Individual voters must be notified and given the opportunity to correct any errors or omissions, or demonstrate eligibility before they are stricken from the rolls.

- Develop and publish rules for an individual to prevent or remedy her erroneous inclusion in an impending purge. Eligible citizens should have a clear way to restore their names to voter rolls.

- Stop using failure to vote as a trigger for a purge. States should send address confirmation notices only when they believe a voter has moved.

- Develop directives and criteria with respect to the authority to purge voters. The removal of any record should require authorization by at least two officials.

- Preserve purged voter registration records.

Make purge lists publicly available.

B. Strict Criteria for the Development of Purge Lists

States should:

- Ensure a high degree of certainty that names on a purge list belong there. Purge lists should be reviewed multiple times to ensure that only ineligible voters are included.

- Establish strict criteria for matching voter lists with other sources.

- Audit purge source lists. If purge lists are developed by matching names on the voter registration list to names from other sources like criminal conviction lists, the quality and accuracy of the information in these lists should be routinely “audited” or checked.

- Monitor duplicate removal procedures. States should implement uniform rules and procedures for eliminating duplicate registrations.

C. “Fail-Safe” Provisions to Protect Voters

States should ensure that:

- No voter is turned away from the polls because her name is not found on the voter rolls. Instead, would-be voters should be given provisional ballots, to which they are entitled under the law.

Election workers are given clear instructions and adequate training as to HAVA’s provisional balloting requirements.

D. Universal Voter Registration
States should:

- Take the affirmative responsibility to build clean voter rolls consisting of all eligible citizens. Building on other government lists or using other innovative methods, states can make sure that all eligible citizens, and only eligible citizens, are on the voter rolls.

- Ensure that voters stay on the voter rolls when they move within the state.
Provide a fail-safe mechanism of Election Day registration for those individuals who are missed or whose names are erroneously purged from the voter rolls.

About the Author
Myrna Pérez is counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, focusing on a variety of voting rights and election administration issues including the Brennan Center’s efforts to restore the vote to people with felony convictions. Prior to joining the Center, Ms. Pérez was the Civil Rights Fellow at Relman & Dane, a civil rights law firm in Washington, D.C. A graduate of Columbia Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Ms. Pérez clerked for the Honorable Anita B. Brody of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and for the Honorable Julio M. Fuentes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.