The state Government Accountability Board has purged thousands of voters from the Statewide Voter Registration System.
The agency sent out postcards on April 15th to nearly 300,000 voters who have not cast a ballot in Wisconsin within the last four years. Of those, GAB director Kevin Kennedy says 105,667 were sent back as undeliverable, 177,422 were not returned at all, and 16,652 were sent back with requests that their voter registration be continued. As a result, just over 283,000 names were removed from the state’s database of active voters.
AUDIO: Kevin Kennedy (:09)
Kennedy says there are many likely reasons why a person may not have returned a card or it was returned without a valid address. He says people move, their deaths are missed by a usual check of records, or they just may not want to vote anymore.
The process only means a purged name will not show up in poll books if someone turns out to vote in a future election. Kennedy says they will just have to re-register in order to obtain a ballot.