The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Canceled Ga. voters often re-register
Nearly 44,000 cast ballots in November’s election after losing registrations in ’17, AJC analysis shows.
When Georgia canceled more than 534,000 voter registrations in 2017, Joyce Bailey of Snellville was among those swept up in the largest removal of inactive registrations in U.S. history.
But Bailey, who works in a metro Atlanta school system, was able to restore her registration and vote in the 2020 presidential election.
Bailey is one of nearly 44,000 voters who lost their registrations four years ago but re-registered and cast a ballot in November’s election, according to a comparison of cancellation lists and voter history data by The Atlanta Journal-constitution.
As Georgia election officials plan to cancel 102,000 registrations
this summer, Bailey’s experience shows how registration cancellations, called voter “purges” by their critics, take away the ability to vote but aren’t necessarily permanent. Eligible voters who realize they were canceled can re-register and vote. Those who don’t re-register would be left out of elections.
“I wanted my voice to be heard and my vote to be counted. I thought it was time to get a new change,” said Bailey, who hadn’t voted since 2008. “I did not vote for a while, so I did register.”
Voter registrations can be canceled in Georgia after voters move or don’t participate in elections for several years. Cancellations occur every other year as required by Georgia law to remove ineligible or infrequent voters, in an effort to keep up-todate voter lists.
Some of those who re-registered after 2017, such as Bailey, were removed under Georgia’s “use it or lose it” law. Under the law, voters are labeled “inactive” if they fail to participate in elections for five years, then their registrations are voided if they miss the next two general elections.
Other voters were initially canceled because they had moved to a different county or state, and then they re-registered in their new county or after moving back to Georgia. Voters are automatically registered to vote when they obtain a driver’s license in Georgia, meaning some might not have realized their registrations were canceled and then reactivated.
Election officials mail notifications to voters before their registrations are canceled. Afterward, it’s up to voters to check that they’re registered on the state’s My Voter Page.
In addition to the 44,000 who were canceled in 2017 and later re-registered to vote, 12,000 other voters who were removed in 2019 also re-registered and cast ballots last fall, according to the AJC’S analysis. The 2019 registration cancellation process was smaller, affecting 287,000 registrations.
Those who re-registered to vote after previously being canceled are eligible Georgia residents, and there’s no indication of any fraud. They signed up to vote through the Georgia Department of Driver Services or by filling out voter registration forms.
Federal law requires states to remove ineligible people from voter rolls, but Georgia’s voter registration cancellations go further by canceling registrations of people who have chosen not to participate in a few elections or whose election mail was mistakenly returned to sender, said Saira Draper of the Democratic Party of Georgia.
“We have seen countless examples of voters mistakenly slated for removal from the rolls even though they are eligible to vote at their address,” Draper said. “The secretary of state should be less eager to remove voters from the rolls and more helpful in getting eligible voters registered.”
Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said removing obsolete voter registrations is essential to ensuring election integrity, eliminating registrations of voters who have moved from Georgia. But federal law prohibits states from systematically canceling ineligible voters within 90 days of elections for federal office.
“The voters don’t live here anymore. We know that,” Raffensperger said. “But instead of doing this on a monthly basis, you can only do this in non-election years because of the federal laws.”
A federal judge recently upheld Georgia’s “use it or lose it” law, finding that canceled voters aren’t significantly burdened because they can re-register to vote, as Bailey did.
The AJC’S review of those who re-registered and then voted in November’s election didn’t find significant racial, age or geographic disparities in comparison to those who were originally canceled in 2017.
The rates of those who re-registered and voted generally align with population, meaning most of these voters live in the state’s largest counties that generally support Democrats: Chatham, Cobb, Dekalb, Fulton and Gwinnett.
In all, more than 107,000 voters whose registrations were removed in 2017 have re-registered to vote in Georgia — 20% of the cancellations. Most of them didn’t vote in November. It’s unknown how many of those who didn’t re-register to vote moved away or simply decided not to vote.
The secretary of state’s office sent notification letters this month to voters whose registrations could be canceled this year, giving eligible voters an opportunity to prevent their removals. If voters re-register to vote within 40 days, their registrations remain active.
If you’re among the 25% of Americans averse to needles, you’re probably not surprised by the COVID-19 immunization stall. Even for those who want to be inoculated, bribes with beer or lottery tickets may not be enough to override anxiety made worse by pervasive images of needles.
N eedle fear has increased dramatically since a landmark 1995 study by J.G. Hamilton reported that 10% of adults and 25% of children feared needles. In that paper, adult patients who remembered when their fear began described a stressful needle experience around age 5.
Not surprisingly, needle fear affects how willing teens and adults are to get vaccinated.
Health care workers are no exception: A 2018 study found that 27% of hospital employees dodged flu vaccines due to needle fear. And most recently, an April 2021 national survey of 600 notyet-covid-19-vaccinated U.S. adults found that 52% reported moderate to severe needle fear.
For children, evidence shows that addressing their fear and pain while distracting them from the procedure is most effective in reducing distress.
While adults are not just big children, combining these concepts with findings from available adult injection studies suggest a few potential interventions.
Pain reduction
Relieving injection pain may reduce needle fear by giving patients a feeling of control.
For example, a group of patients in New Zealand were repeatedly missing their monthly antibiotic injections for rheumatic heart disease.
Their doctors created a special clinic, offering either anesthetics, a vibrating cold device or both during the shot.
The interventions in 107 adults reduced pain and fear by 50% after three months. Six months later, half the patients still used the interventions, and the special “missed dose” clinic was no longer needed.
Specifically for vaccination, applying a vibrating cold device to the injection site a minute prior to injection, then pressing just above the site during injection, relieved pain and improved satisfaction for adults, and was most effective for those with needle fear.
Psychological therapy
Each week, as part of our solutionsoriented focus, The Atlanta JournalConstitution partners with the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous reporting about responses to social problems.
Exposure-based therapy involves asking a patient to rank anxiety caused by parts of a procedure, like seeinga picture of a tourniquet or thinking about sharp things, and gradually exposing them to these parts in a controlled environment.
Free self-guided resources are available for fears ranging from flying to spiders. However, none of the three studies testing this approach on adult needle fear showed long-term fear reduction.
One of the studies that taught techniques to reduce fainting, however, was considered a success. Fainting and needle fear are often conflated. While passing out due to injections is more common with anxiety, it is often a genetic response.
Tensing the stomach muscles increases the volume of blood the heart can pump, keeping blood in the brain to prevent lightheadedness during needle procedures.
Planning ahead can help make vaccine day more approachable.
Distraction
Surprisingly, there are no studies on adults using distraction for injections. Two studies, however, have found that pretending to cough reduces pain from blood draws.
Mentally engaging tasks may also help. A visual finding task given to children during intramuscular shots has been shown to reduce pain and fear, with 97% rating the experience more pleasant than previous blood draws. Adults may need a more complicated task, but a similar intervention could work for them as well.
The more, the better
To reduce needle fear, research suggests the more interventions, the better.
A 2018 study summarizing research on vaccine pain concluded that patient-operated cold and vibration devices combined with distraction techniques were most effective. Canada has implemented a practical national needle fear intervention for their vaccine rollout, emphasizing preparing ahead to help make vaccine day more comfortable.
Adults who don’t like needles are in the majority.
Taking control of your vaccination experience may be the best way to combat needle anxiety.