States removed the registration records of more than 17 million voters between the 2016 and the 2018 elections in accordance with federal law, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
That number represents about 2.5 million more voters than were removed from 2013 to 2014 under the National Voting Rights Act, which mandates that states allow increased voting and registration opportunities as well as maintain accurate and current voting rolls. Under the act, states removed voters for not voting, moving between voting districts, death, committing a disqualifying crime, or being judged mentally incapacitated.
The biennial survey follows calls in recent years by Republican-led state governments for more aggressive implementation of list-maintenance techniques they say are meant to protect the integrity of elections. Voting rights advocates have argued the methods disproportionately affect Democratic voters and minorities without enough consideration for the possibility of inaccurate removals, leading to claims of voter suppression.
Legal challenges over voter registration practices have broken out across the country, often splitting along partisan lines. In 2018, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court ruled that Ohio did not violate federal laws in its voter list maintenance process. In the state, if a voter doesn’t vote in two years, they are sent a confirmation notice. If the mail is returned as undeliverable, the voter may be removed from the rolls in a process known as “voter caging.”
