As part of our ongoing 2010 Issues in Election Administration series, Project Vote released a policy paper, a legislative brief, and a model bill – related to how states maintain their lists of eligible voters.
Under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), states are charged with performing a careful balancing act: to keep registration lists current and up-to-date while also ensuring that no eligible registrant is purged from the statewide voter rolls. Studies have shown, however, that a lack of clear standards for conducing these programs has resulted in widely variable and poorly implemented voter list maintenance programs across the country, which have disenfranchised thousands of eligible voters.
Project Vote’s new policy paper, Maintaining Current and Accurate Voter Lists, explores the federal laws relating to list maintenance under NVRA and HAVA, presents an overview of problems that have arisen as a result of the implementation of federal list maintenance provisions, and gives specific recommendations for minimizing or eliminating list maintenance errors that adversely impact voters. In addition to the full-length paper, Project Vote is also releasing a shorter, more condensed legislative brief on the issue – appropriate for any audience – and a model bill to guide legislators towards policies that help protect eligible voters from improper purges.