MADISON, Wis. (AP) —
Wisconsin elections officials said Wednesday that they have removed more than 205,000 voters from the rolls as part of routine work to keep the state’s registration lists up to date.
Wisconsin Elections Commission officials said they deactivated 174,307 voter registrations because the voters hadn’t cast a ballot in four years and didn’t respond to a mailing. They said they are required by law every two years to identify registered voters who haven’t voted in the previous four years and deactivate them unless they wish to remain registered.
The commission also deactivated 31,854 registrations of voters who may have moved and didn’t respond to a mailing.
The commission mailed postcards during the summer of 2019 to more than 230,000 voters identified by the Electronic Registration Information Center as having possibly moved.
The commission voted that summer not to deactivate them until after the 2021 elections to give them several chances to affirm they hadn’t moved. That stance prompted a lawsuit from the conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty demanding the commission remove those voters within 30 days if they didn’t respond to the mailing. The state Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the commission wasn’t required to remove voters within that window.
