Here We Go Again: Georgia Purges 100,000 Voters from Registration Files

An Atlanta NAACP official told a local news outlet that he's worried about thousands of voters being wrongfully removed from the registration roll.

Like the Fast & Furious franchise, it seems like the saga of voter suppression in Georgia wonโ€™t end any time soon.

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Trump’s Tariffs Might Stick Around. What Should We Buy Now?
Trump’s Tariffs Might Stick Around. What Should We Buy Now?

CNN reports that more than 100,000 names will be removed from the stateโ€™s voter registration rolls. On Friday, Georgiaโ€™s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger released a statement saying this is an attempt to keep his officeโ€™s files current by clearing out โ€œineligible,โ€ โ€œobsoleteโ€ and โ€œoutdatedโ€ voters.

From CNN:

The effort to remove 101,789 names from Georgiaโ€™s voter files marks the first time the state has conducted a โ€œmajor cleaningโ€ since 2019, but Georgia regularly removes the voter files of convicted felons and the dead on a monthly basis, according to the statement.

โ€œThe 101,789 obsolete voter files that will be removed include 67,286 voter files associated with a National Change of Address form submitted to the U.S. Postal Service; 34,227 voter files that had election mail returned to sender; and 276 that had no-contact with elections officials for at least five years,โ€ the statement said. โ€œIn each of these cases, the individual had no contact with Georgiaโ€™s elections officials in any way - either directly or through the Department of Driver Services - for two general elections.โ€

Purges like this are nothing new in Georgia. According to The Los Angeles Times, Georgiaโ€™s secretary of stateโ€™s office has cancelled more than 1.4 million voter registrations between 2012 and 2018. But these efforts remain controversial for disproportionately rendering Black residents unable to vote.

Not only did Stacey Abrams and other voting rights activists take then-secretary of state and now current Gov. Brian Kemp both to task and to court over these previous purges, but the rampant (and just outright blatant) voter suppression on behalf of state Republicans even led to a Congressional investigation.

Gerald Griggs with the Atlanta branch of the NAACP told WSB-TV that he was worried that once again, the thousands of voters listed in the recent purge will be improperly removed from the stateโ€™s registration list as they were in 2019.

โ€œWe already have lawyers on standby, I am on standby, just in case we have to file litigation. So we are going to be watching this and we will respond if we believe voters have been disenfranchised,โ€ Griggs said.

Raffensperger, Kempโ€™s successor, is standing by the stateโ€™s practice of purging voters, saying that itโ€™s โ€œkey to ensuring the integrity of our elections.โ€

Which, alright. If you say so, guy.

Iโ€™m sure you remember that former President Donald Trump and other members of Georgiaโ€™s Republican Party gave Raffensperger hell for acknowledging that Trump lost the state to Joe Biden.

Due to Trumpโ€™s constant and baseless claims of widespread voter fraud within the state, Georgia swiftly passed a wildly restrictive voting law thatโ€“as The Root has written about beforeโ€“mainly suppresses Black voters, as Black voters in Georgia primarily vote for Democrats and are more likely to vote by mail.

If thatโ€™s โ€œintegrity,โ€ then I guess we should change the definition of the word.

According to the L.A. Times, those who were named in the most recent voter purge in Georgia have 40 days to respond in order to remain active voters.

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