Skip to main content
Saturday, November 14, 2026Nov 14
Subscribe
All Sections
Search
More

Georgia purge removes nearly 309,000 voter registrations

FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2019 file photo, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger answers questions after the Georgia House passed a bill to buy a new election system that includes a paper ballot. Georgia election officials are set to begin a mass purge of inactive voters from the state’s voting rolls on Monday, Dec. 16, 2019. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in October released a list of over 313,000 voters whose registrations were at risk of being cancelled, about 4% of the state’s total registered voters. Those voters were mailed notices in November and had 30 days to respond in order to keep their registration intact. (Bob Andres//Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2019 file photo, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger answers questions after the Georgia House passed a bill to buy a new election system that includes a paper ballot. Georgia election officials are set to begin a mass purge of inactive voters from the state’s voting rolls on Monday, Dec. 16, 2019. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in October released a list of over 313,000 voters whose registrations were at risk of being cancelled, about 4% of the state’s total registered voters. Those voters were mailed notices in November and had 30 days to respond in order to keep their registration intact. (Bob Andres//Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File)

By BEN NADLER / Associated Press 3 min read

ATLANTA (AP) – Georgia election officials purged nearly 309,000 voter registrations from the state’s voting rolls this week, according to a list of cancelled registrations released by the secretary of state’s office on Wednesday.

A federal judge is set to hear arguments Thursday about whether some of those registrations should be reinstated. The hearing comes after Fair Fight Action, a voting rights advocacy group founded by Democrat Stacey Abrams, filed an emergency motion earlier this week asking the court to stop part of the purge.

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones allowed the purge to move forward Monday after a lawyer for the state said the voter maintenance program was already running and that any voters deemed to have been wrongly removed could have their registrations reinstated within 24 to 48 hours.

Nearly 5,000 voters were able to save their registrations from being canceled in recent months by voting in November, responding to mailed notices or having some other type of contact with election officials, according to the secretary of state’s office.

Fair Fight is challenging the removal of people who ended up on the purge list for inactivity, or “solely because they have not voted or had any other statutorily-defined ‘contact’ with election officials in the past seven years and have not responded to two notices seeking confirmation of their current address.” The final list of purged registrations shows that nearly 118,000 people were removed for this type of inactivity.