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Purges worst in places Justice Department no longer oversees, research shows

Purges worst in places Justice Department no longer oversees, research shows

North Carolina was one of the states partially covered by the Voting Rights Act "preclearance" requirement that was struck down by the Supreme Court.

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Voters in counties that were once under federal oversight because of past election discrimination are being purged from the registration rolls at much higher rates than other counties, according to new research.

The Brennan Center for Justice, in a report released this week, examined the culling of registered voters by state officials across the country in the previous three years. One aim was to see what had happened in the years since the Supreme Court struck down as antiquated the system for deciding which states and counties would require Justice Department approval before making any changes to election procedures – such as purging of voting lists.

This "preclearance" requirement, a central part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, applied to eight states in the South and parts of six other states where there was a history of racial discrimination in the political process.


The Brennan Center found that 17 million voters were purged nationwide between 2016 and 2018. The purge rate for that period in jurisdictions previously covered by preclearance was 40 percent higher than in those areas not covered by that oversight requirement, researchers found.

The principal stated aim of such purges is to remove duplicates, the dead and people who've moved out of state – all in the name of preventing potential fraud. But the improper removal of properly registered and politically active people has historically been used as a technique to prevent blacks and other minorities from voting.

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Heading into the 2020 election, the report calls on election administrators to be "diligent in their efforts to avoid erroneously purging voters."

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Half-Baked Alaska

A photo of multiple checked boxes.

Getty Images / Thanakorn Lappattaranan

Half-Baked Alaska

This past year’s elections saw a number of state ballot initiatives of great national interest, which proposed the adoption of two “unusual” election systems for state and federal offices. Pairing open nonpartisan primaries with a general election using ranked choice voting, these reforms were rejected by the citizens of Colorado, Idaho, and Nevada. The citizens of Alaska, however, who were the first to adopt this dual system in 2020, narrowly confirmed their choice after an attempt to repeal it in November.

Ranked choice voting, used in Alaska’s general elections, allows voters to rank their candidate choices on their ballot and then has multiple rounds of voting until one candidate emerges with a majority of the final vote and is declared the winner. This more representative result is guaranteed because in each round the weakest candidate is dropped, and the votes of that candidate’s supporters automatically transfer to their next highest choice. Alaska thereby became the second state after Maine to use ranked choice voting for its state and federal elections, and both have had great success in their use.

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The United States Supreme Court.

Getty Images / Rudy Sulgan

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Fourteen years ago, after the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the popular blanket primary system, Californians voted to replace the deeply unpopular closed primary that replaced it with a top-two system. Since then, Democratic Party insiders, Republican Party insiders, minor political parties, and many national reform and good government groups, have tried (and failed) to deep-six the system because the public overwhelmingly supports it (over 60% every year it’s polled).

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Gerrymandering and voting rights under review by Supreme Court again

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Open primary advocates must embrace the historic principles of change

This was a big year for the open primaries movement. Seven state-level campaigns and one municipal. Millions of voters declaring their support for open primaries. New leaders emerging across the country. Primary elections for the first time at the center of the national reform debate.

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