Chapter 5: The Reality of List Maintenance
The above report by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission details what happened in 2000 when the state of Florida hired a company, Choice Point, to go through state voter rolls and construct a “felons’ list,” that is, a list containing the names of people on voter rolls who were suspected of having a felony conviction that disqualified them from voting in Florida. These lists were then sent by the state to the counties without any verification that they were accurate. Counties were instructed to do that themselves, even though it was the state that had the necessary data for removing and restoring felon voting rights, not the counties. Later, it was found that Choice Point used an 80% matching threshold that falsely identified many qualified voters as being felons. While this report concerns persons with felony convictions, it is easy to see that attempts to scrub supposed illegal voters from voting rolls has the potential to disenfranchise legally registered voters.
NVRA List Maintenance Guidance, Issued September 2024
The above report, issued by the U.S. Department of Justice prior to the 2024 election, provides guidance to the states concerning procedures that must be followed under the National Voter Registration Act for the removal of persons from voter registration rolls. It also explains the 90-day “quiet” period before a Federal election when all list maintenance activities must cease. This means that no program of voter removal can be undertaken in this period. Individuals can only be removed under certain, carefully defined circumstances. Any program of removal using a third-party database is also specifically prohibited. The NVRA (sometimes called “Motor Voter”) was passed to encourage voter participation by making it easier to register to vote, to prescribe a process for list maintenance (removing voters who are deceased or ineligible), and to prevent disenfranchisement of legitimate voters, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the states or other challengers, without uniform procedures and appropriate notice that affords time to challenge the removal from the rolls.