The State Board of Elections has announced that, pursuant to both state and federal law, 225,311 ineligible registrations have been purged from the Commonwealth’s voter rolls, after they were confirmed to have been inactive for at least two federal elections.
“The State Board of Elections is required by statute to continuously conduct voter list maintenance in the state, and we take this responsibility extremely seriously,” said Karen Sellers, Executive Director of the State Board of Elections. “Voters should know that as we conduct these processes, we do so while following strict guidelines established in state and federal law; no voter is ever removed for simply not voting, we are careful not to remove any eligible voters.”
States must gather change-of-address information and then conduct a series of postcard mailings to contact voters to confirm their most up-to-date information. If, for a period of two federal elections, a contacted voter does not respond to one of the multiple postcards they are sent, does not show up to vote, or does not otherwise confirm their information, their registration is purged.
The statutory purge process resulted in the removal of ineligible voter registrations from across party lines. Of those removed, 99,168 were Democrats (44 percent), 95,732 were Republicans (42.5 percent), and 30,411 (13.5 percent) came from all other registrant types.
“Strong voter turnout depends on public confidence in our election process. The removal of an additional 225,000 individuals from the voter rolls – Republicans, Democrats and Independents – in compliance with federal and state law should hearten every proponent of fair elections” said Secretary of State Michael Adams, who serves as the chair of the State Board of Elections.
Including this latest purge of inactive voters, the State Board of Elections has removed over 734,000 total voter registrations for all ineligibility reasons since January 2019.
Voters can always check their current registration status at the State Board of Elections’ website, www.elect.ky.gov
By: Tom Latek, Kentucky Today
