Clark Atlanta University student Gabrielle Willis said she wasn’t surprised in late March when she learned of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office plans to cancel 455,000 “inactive” voter registrations later this year, but the news did concern her.
“We face a lot going back and forth here at the AUC,” Willis told Capital B Atlanta on Tuesday. “I do think that it is another attempt at voter suppression, which we’ve constantly been facing.”
College students like Willis tend to relocate often while earning their degree over the course of four years. Voting rights groups say thousands of Georgia college students, including those attending one of the state’s 10 HBCUs, are at higher risk of having their voter registrations canceled or challenged unduly due to their transient nature — and, possibly, their propensity to vote Democrat in a state that’s been led by Republicans for more than two decades.
The Secretary of State’s office has characterized plans to remove nearly half a million people from the voting rolls as normal “voter list maintenance” done every two years. Georgia law says voters become “inactive” when it appears they have moved. Their voter registrations can be canceled once they fail to participate in two consecutive general elections — a span of up to eight years.
“List maintenance is a routine process required by state and federal law,” said Robert A. Sinners, the Secretary of State’s communications director. “Thanks to our partnership with the Electronic Registration Information Center, Georgia leads the nation in the quality and accuracy of our voter rolls.”
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office identified 170,000 inactive voter registrations based on data collected by the Election Registration Information Center (ERIC), a nonprofit group of state election officials from across the nation that works to root out voter fraud and maintain more accurate voter rolls.
Georgia joined ERIC in 2020 and has used its list maintenance system since 2021 to help remove the names of people who have moved out of the state, according to Sinners. An ERIC spokesperson noted via email last week that its members must use reports and data the group provides “in compliance with applicable state and federal law.”
“With as many as 10% of the population moving every year, it’s important to have accurate voter rolls so that election officials can ensure speedy check-ins at the polls and properly allocate resources to each precinct,” Sinners told Capital B Atlanta in an emailed statement.
Willis, a 21-year-old graduating senior from Brooklyn, New York, said she fears students like her — who have moved to Georgia from out of state, but live in Atlanta and are eligible to vote here — could have their voter registrations canceled unduly and be barred from voting in a pivotal midterm election next year.
“I’ve probably gone through three different zip codes, and some of those were student housing,” Willis said. “Does that mean I’m not a Georgia resident or a legitimate voter?”
No, it doesn’t, according to Deborah Scott, executive director of Georgia STAND-UP, a voter engagement group that conducts registration drives and voter education campaigns at the AUC.
The Secretary of State’s office confirmed last year that it’s perfectly legal for all Georgia college students to register and vote here as long as they can meet the eligible voting requirements, including proof of residency. They may not be simultaneously registered with different addresses.
The list of requirements also includes being at least 17.5 years of age and proof of U.S. citizenship. Eligible voters can’t be actively serving a felony sentence. Individuals who have been declared mentally incompetent by a judge also are not eligible to vote in Georgia.
“We want all the HBCU students to register to vote where they live,” Scott told Capital B Atlanta on Tuesday. “Where they lay their head is where they should vote.”
Other voting barriers for AUC students
Willis and other students at the Atlanta University Center have not been allowed to use their student IDs to vote in the past because they are not government issued.
Last year, students at Savannah State University reportedly had their voter eligibility challenged. Georgia students have also contended with the controversial Election Integrity Act of 2021, also known as SB 202, which made national headlines four years ago for barring volunteers from giving water and food to voters standing in line outside polling locations.
Voter engagement group Black Voters Matter hosts annual registration drives at Georgia HBCUs during its Black Youth Renaissance Tour. Melinee Calhoun, who serves as Georgia’s state organizer for Black Voters Matter, said she too is concerned about students having their voter registrations canceled in light of the secretary of state’s announcement last week.
Calhoun also called attention to a proposed federal law backed by President Donald Trump known as the SAVE Act, which stands for Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility. The measure, which passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, would require all Americans to show proof of citizenship to register to vote.
“This is going to create a barrier for students to be able to register or re-register if they’re purged,” Calhoun said.
Clark Atlanta student Ajinkya Soumas said news about the state’s latest voter registration cancellations was “disheartening.” The 21-year-old Atlanta resident from Waldorf, Maryland, recalled trying and failing to cast a ballot in Georgia’s 2022 midterm election cycle, when GOP Gov. Brian Kemp won reelection over Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams in the rivals’ second political contest.
Soumas said she had planned to vote on Election Day in Georgia for the first time in November 2022 after registering to vote on campus weeks earlier. But when she checked her registration status online at the secretary of state’s My Voter Page that morning, she realized she wasn’t registered.
“I couldn’t even locate my voter registration information. It’s like my voter registration did not exist in the state of Georgia, even though I did fill out that form.”
She said she learned why later.
“My name was misspelled and my address was incorrect, and so I had to resubmit a form to change both of those information portions,” she said, adding that she was unable to vote in 2022.
Some progressive policy advocates, including Harvard Law graduate and MSNBC correspondent Elie Mystal, have questioned why American citizens have to register to vote at all since voting is a constitutional right.
Soumas said she doesn’t want other Black college students to be disenfranchised the way she was.
“If they don’t have access to information and they’re not politically engaged, then they’re not going to be able to vote,” she said. “And nine times out of ten, their voter registration will be canceled without their knowledge until they go to vote.”
Secretary of State spokesperson Mike Hassinger urges anyone who is concerned about their voter registration to update it with a new address every time they move, to routinely check their status, and to vote regularly — not just in general elections but also primaries and runoff elections, as well as municipal and judicial contests.
“The best way to keep your voting status current is to exercise your right to vote every chance you get,” Hassinger said. “The secretary encourages every voter to make a plan for when and how they will vote — that plan should include checking your registration status, especially if it’s been more than one election cycle since you last voted.”
Local organizations respond to the voter registration purging
Georgia NAACP President Gerald Griggs characterized the Secretary of State’s list maintenance as “more voter suppression,” suggesting state Republican leaders’ real motive is to create more voting obstacles in a presidential battleground state that was decided by less than 11,000 votes in 2020.
“Georgia continues to purge voters in an effort to pick their electorate, rather than allowing the voice of the people to be heard,” Griggs told Capital B Atlanta via text message on Monday.
“If these purges were really about list management, why do they continue to remove such high numbers of voters year after year?” he continued. “These actions disproportionately silence Black, Brown, and low-income communities.”
Hassinger denied that the mass registration cancellations are a form of voter suppression, chalking it up to a misunderstanding of the process.
“Georgia currently does not register voters by party,” he said. “We have no way to discern if the records being removed are from Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, or any other political affiliation.”
Hassinger said his office is not allowed to update or cancel voter registration records in an automated manner within 90 days of any federal election, which means these mass changes can only occur during odd-numbered years, when presidential or congressional races are not on ballots.
It’s unclear how many Black voters are on the list of names due to be canceled. The Secretary of State’s office said data won’t be available until June or July when the full list of names is released, and racial demographics aren’t readily available.
Public interest groups seeking insight about racial patterns and disparities in voting typically cross-reference names on voter lists with racial demographic data included in voter registration applications, according to the Secretary of State’s office.
“That list can be appended to the master voter roll for the insights you’re looking for when the time comes,” Sinners said.
The voter engagement group known as Fair Fight Action said it intends to examine the data when it’s available. Fair Fight Action CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo also denounced the state’s latest planned round of voter registration cancellations, saying it should worry all voters throughout the state.
“Removing nearly half a million voters from the rolls in one sweep is deeply concerning,” Groh-Wargo told Capital B Atlanta via email. “Mass cancellations like this — especially in a state where voters already face barriers — risk silencing eligible Americans simply because they haven’t voted recently or moved across county lines. The right to vote shouldn’t come with an expiration date.”
