The results of last year’s presidential election left many people feeling uneasy about voting security, with some of the strongest concerns stemming from the usually-red state of Georgia, where former President Donald Trump lost to President Joe Biden by a razor-thin margin of around 12,000 votes.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) stirred speculation this week after announcing that his office discovered over 100,000 ineligible voters on the state’s voter rolls that will reportedly soon be deleted from the system, according to Fox News.
In the name of election integrity
“Making sure Georgia’s voter rolls are up to date is key to ensuring the integrity of our elections,” Raffensperger said in a press release explaining the findings.
“That is why I fought and beat Stacey Abrams in court in 2019 to remove nearly 300,000 obsolete voter files before the November election, and will do so again this year. Bottom line, there is no legitimate reason to keep ineligible voters on the rolls,” he added.
The statement explained that of the 101,789 voters identified as ineligible, 67,286 were on record as having submitted an official change of address form to the U.S. Postal Service.
“These people don’t live in Georgia anymore,” Raffensperger told WSB-TV on Friday, defending his decision to remove them from Georgia’s voter rolls, adding that the process is typically performed every two years.
Over 18,000 deceased voters
“Then you have 18,000 people who passed,” the Republican secretary of state said. “So they are not going to be voting anymore. You need to have accurate voter rolls and proper list maintenance. It also helps your county election directors.”
Raffensperger’s press release indicated that the remainder of the individuals who had been purged either had election mail “returned to sender” or “had no-contact with elections officials for at least five years.”
He also pointed out that this was the first time a comprehensive review of the state’s voter rolls had been completed, attributing the long lag time to onerous election rules.
“Federal law makes it impossible to conduct list maintenance during general election due to federal mandates before federal elections that force states to rely on voter rolls that may include some obsolete files,” his statement to the press said.
Dems want to change the game
Many congressional Republicans claim that the ability of states to protect election integrity could be further curtailed if Democrats succeed in passing the “For The People Act,” which would radically shift the control of local and state elections into the hands of the U.S. government, which some believe would ultimately favor Democratic candidates.
Fox News commentator Hans A. von Spakovsky wrote in a March op-ed that, among other ramifications, the Democrat-led legislation would “eviscerate” voter ID laws, mandate universal mail-in balloting, and make it exceedingly difficult for states to purge deceased voters, which would almost certainly make for disastrous, messy elections in the years to come.
The post Georgia preparing to remove over 100,00 ineligible voters from state’s rolls first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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