Clerks plan to clean up voter rolls in primary
MADISON - Election officials will use the Feb. 18 primary to begin to clean up the state’s voter rolls amid a legal brawl over who can remain registered to vote.
The primary gives clerks around the state a chance to get voters to update their addresses or confirm they are already registered at the correct addresses. They hope to use the same system for other elections before the Nov. 3 presidential election as well.
Clerks are printing poll books for the
Feb. 18 primary that have a special designation for voters who election officials believe may have moved. Over those voters’ names will be superimposed the phrase, “Have you moved?”
When those voters check in at the polls, election workers will ask them whether their addresses are correct. If they’ve moved, they’ll be directed to reregister to vote, which they can do at the polls.
If they haven’t moved, they’ll be told that by signing the poll book they’re confirming their addresses. Their registrations will be updated on the voter rolls to show their addresses are correct.
“The intent of that was to let people vote but also try to clear up this discrepancy in that we have information that shows two different addresses,” said Dean Knudson, the chairman of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
The Feb. 18 primary is a low-turnout election, so clerks may make only a little headway on the issue. But they may have another chance to take care of more voters on April 7, when a larger share of the electorate will turn out to pick a state Supreme Court justice and weigh in on who Democrats should pick as their presidential nominee.
At issue is the vote status of a large number of voters in a state that Donald Trump narrowly won in 2016. The state again appears closely divided and is a top target for both sides in 2020.
While election clerks hope the Feb. 18 primary will help them clean up the rolls, they are urging people to act on their own.
Voters can check their voter registration at myvote.wi.gov and normally can update their addresses on that site if they have moved.
Because the primary is soon, they can’t use the site to update their voter registration for the time being and must do so in their clerk’s office or at the polls on election day. They will again be able to use the web to update their voter registration starting Feb. 19, the day after the primary.
Lawsuit seeks to remove voters from rolls
The Wisconsin Elections Commission in October sent letters to more than 230,000 voters who it believed had moved. It asked them to confirm they were still at the same address or register at their new address. The commissioners planned to remove people from the rolls in 2021 — well after the presidential election — if they hadn’t acted by then.
Three suburban Milwaukee men represented by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty sued in November. They argued state law requires the state to take people off the voter rolls 30 days after sending the letters if the voters hadn’t responded by then.
Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Paul Malloy agreed and ordered the state in December to take voters off the rolls. Before the commission acted, an appeals court blocked Malloy’s order, leaving people on the rolls.
So far, no one has been taken off the rolls. That could change depending on how the appeals court ultimately rules on the case. The state Supreme Court could eventually review the case, but the justices on a 3-3 vote in January decided not to take it for now.
A separate lawsuit has been filed in federal court trying to keep people from being taken off the rolls. That case is in its early stages but could help determine whether people are purged from the rolls.
The state developed its list of who it believed might have moved with the help of the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, a coalition of 28 states and Washington, D.C., that tries to keep voter rolls as accurate as possible.
ERIC flags voters who file address changes with the post office or register vehicles at new addresses. While that practice catches many voters who moved, it also identifies some who did not. For instance, ERIC sometimes labels people as having moved when they actually just registered their vehicles at business addresses instead of their home addresses.
Voters are required to update their registration any time they move to make sure they go to the right polling place and get the right ballot.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission was required to join ERIC under a 2016 law backed by Republicans that also created the state’s online system to register to vote. Under the state’s agreement with ERIC, it is required to send letters to voters that ERIC has flagged as having potentially moved.
State law requires election officials to remove voters from the rolls if they do not respond within 30 days of being notified there is “reliable information” they have moved. The lawsuits hinge on whether the information from ERIC is “reliable” and whether the law applies to the Wisconsin Elections Commission or just local election officials.
The requirement to take people off the rolls if they don’t respond to letters from election officials has been in place since at least the 1920s, public records show.
The 2016 law regarding joining ERIC and allowing online voter registration initially enjoyed bipartisan backing. But Democratic support evaporated because of GOP-backed provisions in the measure, such as one that ended the ability of special registration deputies to sign people up to vote.
Letters to unregistered voters
As the fight over the state’s letters raged, an independent group last month sent letters to more than 400,000 people urging them to register to vote. As it has in the past, the Voter Participation Center contacted Wisconsinites who it believes are eligible to vote but who are not now registered.
The group said it was targeting young people, minorities and unmarried women.
“We focus on these demographics because it’s the largest gap between their eligibility to vote and how they actually show up in elections,” said Jessica Barba Brown, the center’s chief executive officer. “This is really about making our democracy reflective of the people that live in this country, and right now it’s not.”
Like the state’s information, the group’s data isn’t always accurate. In some cases, it sent letters addressed to “current resident” to places where registered voters live — including the home of Meagan Wolfe, the executive director of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Barba Brown said her group has found that fewer than 1% of its letters are sent in error.
The group’s board includes a member of the Democratic National Committee, a co-director of the liberal group Citizen Action/Illinois and an activist who worked on Democrat Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign.