Pierce County will begin the process of updating is voter rolls by notifying 627 registered voters who haven’t voted in two consecutive federal elections or had voting activity in another state.
Those who haven’t voted in two consecutive federal election cycles — or about 10 years — face cancellation of their voter registration.
The 627 notifications being mailed out represent about 4.6 percent of the county’s 13,359 registered voters while statewide the 478,000 total is about to six percent of Georgia’s 8.4 million registrants.
All states monitor the accuracy of their voting rolls periodically. Georgia checks its rolls in oddnumbered years following an election.
A record 534,000 voter registrations were removed in 2017. Since then, the state has removed between 101,000 to 287,000 at other checks.
“We send out letter periodically to keep our voter rolls current,” said Leah Ritch, Pierce County Elections Supervisor.
Ritch’s office also updates the rolls by removing deceased residents. Deceased residents are removed from the list after being verified with family members.
Just because a voter receives a letter doesn’t mean they’ll be removed from the voting rolls, Ritch stressed. They have 40 days to respond by returning the document in the mailing indicating their desire to remain on the roll or by contacting their county election office. Voters who respond to the letters and contact the board of elections will be returned to active status.
If these voters do not respond or make contact with the elections office within 40 days, their registration will be moved to “canceled” status.
Locally, Ritch said citizens can check their registration status at mvp.sos.ga.gov or contact the Pierce County Board of Elections and Registration office at (912) 4492028. People should update name or address if they’ve moved, married or had a legal name change.
