Election officials in Wisconsin have deleted more than 205,000 names from voter registration rolls as part of maintaining the lists, they announced on Aug. 4.
More than 174,000 of the voters hadn’t voted in the past four years and didn’t respond to a mailing, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
The deactivation was required under Wisconsin law.
“Many of the deactivated voters have moved and can re-register at their new address. Some of the voters had died and a few others asked to have their registrations canceled,” Meagan Wolfe, the commission’s administrator, said in a statement.
Another 12,121 voters returned the mailing within 30 days of receipt, which kept them active.
A second group of more than 31,000 voters also was removed from the rolls, which stemmed from postcards mailed to over 232,000 voters in the summer of 2019. The Electronic Registration Information Center identified the voters as having possibly moved.
The bulk of the people who received the postcards updated their registration at a new address. Some confirmed that they hadn’t moved.
The commission voted in 2019 to remove voters after the 2021 elections. They decided at a June meeting not to change that decision.
State law requires the commission to conduct voter record maintenance every two years.
“The process is designed to ensure the integrity of the active voter list,” Wolfe said. “It is not designed to keep any active voter’s name off the poll list.”
As of Aug. 1, 3.5 million people were registered to vote in Wisconsin. About 3.29 million voted in the 2020 presidential election.
