CHICAGO — The Republican Nationwide Committee on Tuesday launched an enormous effort to probe voter registration lists nationwide amid a broader technique to seize on voter rolls to query the integrity of elections.
RNC despatched public information requests asking for paperwork associated to voter roll record upkeep to the highest election officers in 48 states and the District of Columbia, asserting that the general public ought to know the way states are eradicating ineligible folks from voter rolls, together with useless folks and non-citizens.
The transfer got here the identical day President Donald Trump took sweeping govt motion searching for main adjustments to U.S. elections, together with requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. It additionally coincides with widespread misinformation narratives about non-citizens and useless folks voting, instances of that are exceedingly uncommon and are largely caught and prosecuted when it does happen.
“Voters have a proper to know that their states are correctly sustaining voter rolls and shortly performing to scrub voter registration lists by eradicating ineligible voters,” RNC chairman Michael Whatley mentioned in a press release.
The Nationwide Voter Registration Act already requires states to take steps to take care of correct and present voter registration lists.
Because the 2020 election, conservative activists have seized on false claims of widespread fraud as justification for scrutinizing the work of election officers to take care of voter lists. County election officers have reported being inundated with public report requests that devour staff’ time, typically as they’re making an attempt to arrange for elections.
In 2024, six in 10 native election officers responding to a survey performed by The Elections & Voting Info Middle at Portland State College agreed with the assertion that “unduly burdensome requests considerably impede my means to carry out my duties.”
There have been makes an attempt to problem giant numbers of particular person voters primarily based on flawed evaluation. States have quite a few methods to establish voters who’ve died or moved, together with scanning dying and court docket information to make sure the record of eligible voters and their addresses are as correct and updated as doable.
Twenty-four states are also a part of a bipartisan, multi-state effort to assist them preserve correct voter lists. It was once a bigger group, however 9 GOP-led states left the Digital Registration Info Middle, referred to as ERIC, two years in the past as conservatives raised questions on its funding and function.
During the last two years, ERIC has supplied members with 1,040 experiences figuring out 8.2 million voter information that have been doubtless outdated, based on analysis introduced at a gathering earlier this yr of chief election officers. The information included voters who had died, moved inside a state or to a different state and duplicate registrations.
