Voter Roll Purges: How They Disproportionately Affect Workers

The Quiet Threat to Worker Voting Rights

Across the United States, election officials routinely remove names from voter registration rolls in a process known as voter roll purging. The stated purpose is straightforward: keep registration lists accurate by removing people who have moved, died, or become ineligible. In practice, these purges frequently remove eligible voters — and working-class Americans bear a disproportionate share of the impact.

Election offices purged more than 19 million voter registrations nationwide from 2018 to 2022, according to data compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice. While some removals are routine maintenance, analysis of purge patterns reveals systematic problems that hit hourly workers, renters, and people in lower-income communities hardest.

How Voter Roll Purges Work

States use several methods to identify voters for removal. The most common is "use it or lose it" purging, in which voters who have not participated in recent elections or responded to a mailed notice are flagged for removal. Under the National Voter Registration Act, states cannot remove voters solely for not voting — but they can begin a removal process triggered by non-voting.

The typical sequence works like this: A voter does not participate in two consecutive federal elections. The state sends a confirmation notice to the voter's last registered address. If the voter does not respond and does not vote in the next two federal elections, the registration is canceled.

Other purge methods include database matching — comparing voter rolls against other government databases (DMV records, death records, change-of-address records) — and interstate crosscheck programs that attempt to identify voters registered in multiple states.

Why Workers Are Disproportionately Affected

Several factors make working-class Americans more vulnerable to voter roll purges:

Residential mobility. Workers in hourly and low-wage jobs move more frequently than higher-income professionals. A worker who changes apartments because of a rent increase may not update their voter registration immediately — and a confirmation notice sent to their old address will go unanswered. Census data shows that renters move at roughly twice the rate of homeowners, and lower-income renters move most frequently of all.

Non-standard work schedules. Workers with irregular schedules, multiple jobs, or long commutes are less likely to vote in every election. Missing one or two elections — particularly midterm or local elections — can trigger the purge process. This does not mean these workers have lost interest in voting. It means their work schedules made it difficult to get to a polling place on a specific Tuesday.

Mail handling. Workers who lack stable housing, live in shared housing, or rely on P.O. boxes may never receive the confirmation notices that are central to the purge process. The National Voter Registration Act requires states to use forwardable mail for these notices, but forwarding is unreliable for workers who move between temporary addresses.

Language barriers. Workers for whom English is a second language may not understand confirmation notices or may not recognize them as important government correspondence rather than junk mail. While the Voting Rights Act requires translated election materials in some jurisdictions, confirmation notices are not always provided in languages other than English.

The Scale of the Problem

A 2020 investigation by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that Georgia had purged more than 300,000 voters whose registrations were canceled solely because they had not voted in recent elections and failed to respond to a mailed notice. An analysis of the purged registrations found that voters in majority-Black precincts and lower-income areas were purged at significantly higher rates than those in wealthier, majority-white areas.

Similar patterns have appeared in other states. Ohio's aggressive purge program removed more than 40,000 voters from rolls in the state's three largest counties in a single cycle. Wisconsin purged more than 200,000 registrations in 2019 and 2020 — a figure larger than the margin of victory in the state's 2020 presidential race.

The Brennan Center's analysis found that jurisdictions formerly covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act — areas with documented histories of voter discrimination — purged voters at rates 40 percent higher than jurisdictions not previously covered.

What Unions Are Doing About It

Organized labor has been at the forefront of challenging aggressive voter purges. The AFL-CIO and several affiliated unions have filed amicus briefs in cases challenging purge programs, including the Supreme Court case Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, which addressed Ohio's "use it or lose it" purge policy.

Unions also operate voter registration verification programs that help members check their registration status before election deadlines. The SEIU's "Check Your Registration" campaign encourages members to verify their registration at every union meeting in the months before elections. The AFT distributes registration verification instructions through school district communication channels, reaching both union members and the broader school community.

Some labor councils have established election protection hotlines staffed by volunteer attorneys who can assist workers whose registrations have been incorrectly purged. These programs are especially active in states with histories of aggressive purge practices.

Protecting Your Registration

Workers can take several steps to protect themselves from voter roll purges:

Vote in every election. This is the simplest protection against "use it or lose it" purges. Even voting in a primary or local election resets the inactivity clock in most states.

Update your registration when you move. Most states allow online voter registration updates. Do this as soon as you have a new address — do not wait for election season.

Verify your registration status regularly. Check at least 30 days before any election. Most states provide online verification tools, or you can call your county election office directly.

Respond to any mail from your election office. Even if you believe your registration is current, responding to a confirmation notice prevents your name from being flagged for removal.

Keep records of your voting history. Save your voter registration card and any confirmation of registration. If your registration is purged, these records can help you re-register or challenge the removal.

The right to vote is fundamental to worker power. Voter roll purges that disproportionately affect working-class communities undermine the democratic participation that the labor movement has fought to protect for more than a century. Staying vigilant about registration status — and helping coworkers do the same — is an act of solidarity that strengthens the entire movement.