How the Federal Government Can Clean Up States’ Voter Rolls

Removing ineligible voters from voter rolls builds confidence in the electoral process and reduces the chances of double voting or ineligible voters casting a ballot, both of which disenfranchise law-abiding voters by canceling out their votes. The federal government should give states clear guidance by updating the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), also known as the Motor Voter Law. The law requires states to conduct a general roll maintenance to ensure those who have died or moved are no longer registered to vote. But the vagueness with which it reads needs updating to avoid costly court wrangling and to provide a national roadmap to clean up the voter rolls.

The NVRA, signed by former President Bill Clinton, serves four stated purposes.

1. to establish procedures that will increase the number of eligible citizens who register to vote in elections for Federal office
2. to make it possible for Federal, State, and local governments to implement this Act in a manner that enhances the participation of eligible citizens as voters in elections for Federal office
3. to protect the integrity of the electoral process; and
4. to ensure that accurate and current voter registration rolls are maintained.

The first two purposes of this act are unnecessary. Though not unconstitutional, the federal government should not concern itself with increasing the number of eligible citizens registered to vote. Congress should repeal these purposes and all sections of the law pertaining to them, as they serve the partisan interests of the Democratic Party to bloat voter rolls using taxpayers’ dollars.

Unfortunately, the NVRA exempted states that had same-day voter registration from having to comply with the Act’s election integrity measures. Congress should revise this too. The federal government does have a constitutional interest in enforcing voter integrity through Article IV, Section 4, which guarantees every state a republican form of government. Dirty voter rolls are a sure way to undermine a republican form of government, providing the opportunity to run up vote totals from fake electors.

(Read more: Make Every State Count Ballots Like Florida)

Motor Voter Encourages Illegals to Vote

The NVRA’s Section 8 instructs each state to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.” However, it only specifies cleaning the rolls over the death or move of a registrant. It omits the need to remove a voter for lack of citizenship, which the first half of the law inadvertently facilitates by turning every interaction with government into a voter registration drive.

This section also limits itself to laying out general parameters for when states can remove voters from the rolls. This vagueness has prompted dozens of lawsuits between the Left and Right over states’ interpretation of how far they can go in cleaning their rolls. Clarity on this issue would save time and money in court and ensure a national standard that maintains clean voter rolls in every state.

A revised NVRA should require election officials to post voter registration rolls online. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) already requires states to maintain computerized statewide voter registration lists. States vary, however, in the access they grant to private citizens to these lists. States that grant the most liberal access still require individuals to request them and exempt voters who wish to keep their general location secret because of outstanding restraining orders or domestic abuse. An updated NVRA should apply the most liberal of these states’ access laws nationwide, while forcing every state to make its lists available to view online without the need to request them. In this situation, only the voter’s full name would show, hiding all personal information, including the voter’s address. Exceptions would be made for anyone who has obtained protective or restraining orders and other rare exceptions with court-ordered exemptions on a case-by-case basis.

Posting the rolls online would help citizen watchdogs spot discrepancies, but the bureaucracy required to respond to this would be better served monitoring the rolls itself. A revised NVRA should set specific minimum standards for every state to follow in maintaining the rolls. 

First, add discovery of noncitizenship as a reason to remove someone from the rolls. The absence of this in the current NVRA doesn’t preclude states from removing noncitizens—whose registration undoubtedly constituted less of a problem in 1993—but more liberal states’ lax voter integrity enforcement shows the need for adding this as a federal directive. We can’t simply chalk it up to blue state sensibilities—any state in the union with lax election integrity will affect all the other states, not just itself.

Secondly, require states to clean their voter rolls at least once every Congressional election.

Thirdly, change the requirement that states can only remove voters from the rolls up to 90 days before an election to up to 30 days before the registration deadline, maintaining the current exceptions for a voter’s confirmed death or voter-requested removal.

Fourth, require—don’t just allow—states to remove voters from the rolls if they have not voted in at least two federal elections, and they fail to confirm their listed address.

Finally, an updated NVRA should require a shared system between the states that notifies election officials if someone registers to vote in another state with the same SSN as a registered voter in their state. This alerts them to either double registration or Social Security fraud.

Similar systems have been created in the past, notably the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program (IVRCP) and the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). Neither of these systems had an instant notification feature, and accusations of partisan bias tainted them irreparably. The IVRCP was suspended through a court settlement in 2019 after being accused of having a Republican bias. With ERIC, so many red states have abandoned it to the point of making it obsolete because of its leftist connections that allow liberal groups to data mine it for suspected Democratic GOTV efforts. 

Create a System that Inspires Confidence, not Suspicion

A more uniform system with clear legal requirements would enjoy bipartisan support and confidence greater than anything state governments, the nonprofit sector, or the private sector could ever create. Furthermore, giving it the mandate of federal law would give states and partisans no choice but to comply in applying that system.

Now that Republicans have a trifecta in the federal government, they should revisit the NVRA to ensure states not only have the ability to clean their voter rolls before every federal election but have a federal mandate to do so. Providing the above-listed guidelines would provide clarity and avoid expensive and time-consuming litigation over accusations of voter “purges.” It would also provide complete transparency and boost confidence among Americans of all political persuasions that noncitizens, the deceased, and ineligible citizens who moved to a different jurisdiction haven’t diluted their votes.

(Learn more: Commentary: Automatic Voter Registration Should Be Banned)