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Administrator of Elections reports voter-roll cleanup, NCOA matches and pending citizenship removals
Summary
Administrator of Elections Mr. Roberts reported that the office completed routine voter-roll maintenance that removed about 68,000 inactive registrants and that the National Change of Address match returned roughly 49,000 names for follow-up.
Administrator of Elections Mr. Roberts told the commission the office completed routine voter-registration maintenance and is preparing to remove individuals who have not responded to required notices, and he cautioned that the commission should wait for state guidance before acting on a recent White House executive order.
Mr. Roberts said in February the office made inactive and removed about 68,000 people from the voter rolls who had not engaged since before November 2022. He also said the state or office received a National Change of Address (NCOA) match containing roughly 49,000 records; those names trigger a notification process that can start the statutory removal timeline if individuals do not respond. Mr. Roberts described the cleanup as a long-standing, mandatory process under state and federal requirements.
On citizenship letters, Mr. Roberts reported that 1,312 letters were mailed earlier in the year to registrants flagged for citizenship verification. As of the meeting, the office had received responses from some individuals but had 1,171 outstanding; he said those registrants will be removed from the rolls about April 1 unless they respond. Mr. Roberts told commissioners no formal legal challenges had been filed to date and explained that challenges would require documentary evidence that a registrant is a U.S. citizen and otherwise met the registration standard.
Commissioners raised public-relations concerns about communicating the cleanup to elected officials and the public so the effort is not misunderstood as voter suppression. One commissioner suggested sending targeted notices to local elected officials before posting the cleanup publicly to help manage constituent inquiries.
Mr. Roberts also said the office had circulated a copy of an unspecified White House executive order; he recommended waiting for specific state guidance about how that executive order would interact with existing state legislation before taking further action.
Why it matters: routine maintenance and verification actions can change the number of active registrants and sometimes prompt constituent inquiries or political attention; the commission’s outreach approach and timing affect public understanding and confidence in election administration.
Quotations: "That's the mandatory voter registration cleanup," Mr. Roberts said when describing the process. He added, "No one has challenged, and I really struggle with understanding what you would challenge," when asked whether any of the current notices had produced legal objections.
The commission did not take any formal action at the meeting on these items; Mr. Roberts said the office would proceed according to statutory timelines and provide updates as needed.
