The number of voters shrunk from 7.4 million to 7.08 million, a decrease of 4 percent, after the state removed 309,000 of 313,000 voter registrations which have had no contact with their county election officials since 2012, have moved interstate, or had mail from election officials returned as undeliverable.
Last month, 313,000 voters were notified in the mail that they had 40 days to save their registrations by notifying the state with postage-paid postcards or updating their voter registration online under Georgia's "use it or lose it" provision.
Electoral officials state that the majority of those notified have either moved out of the state or have died.
“Accurate and up-to-date voter rolls are vital to secure elections, but at the same time I want to ensure that anyone potentially affected by this routine process has notice and opportunity to update their information,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said in a statement. “That is why my office is releasing the full list to ensure that people who are still eligible voters can update their information.”
Abrams and other Democrats argued at the time that the measures predominantly affect black, young, or unemployed voters who tend to lean left, but Kemp rejected Abrams’s claims of racist voter suppression as “unfair” in an appearance on Fox & Friends, asserting that Georgia’s election system actually makes it “easy to vote and hard to cheat.”
Fair Fight is suing the state over numerous obstacles they say voters met when they wanted to cast their votes and it also argues that the eligibility to vote is simply a constitutional right that should not be meddled with.
“Georgians should not lose their right to vote simply because they have not expressed that right in recent elections,” Fair Fight CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo told The Atlanta-Journal Constitution. "Georgia’s practice of removing voters who have declined to participate in recent elections violates the United States Constitution.”
However, Raffensperger disagreed.
"Proper list maintenance is not only required by long-standing laws but is also important in maintaining the integrity and smooth functioning of elections,” he said, according to the outlet. “Georgia has registered nearly a half-million voters since the last election, clear proof that we are doing things to make it easy for people to vote.”
“It appears that any voter registration cancellations can be undone at a later date,” Jones wrote in his order. “The court’s ruling is based largely on defense counsel’s statement (at today’s hearing) that any voter registration that is canceled today can be restored within 24 to 48 hours.”