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Voter List Maintenance: News and Updates

Election Administration

One year ago, the EAC hosted and created a series of events, blogs, and other activities related to voter list maintenance, the process – per state and federal laws – election officials use to maintain accurate and up-to-date voter rolls. These efforts are an integral component of election administration and are a constant for election officials. 

As EAC Commissioner Matt Masterson has stated, “For state and local election officials, list maintenance is not a once a year spring cleaning exercise, but instead a constant process akin to doing laundry. Once you finish your ‘last load,’ the hamper is full again and it’s time to start over.”

With that in mind, in the coming weeks the EAC will revisit some of the efforts made by election officials to keep voter rolls accurate, as well as highlight and update related research and news.

Today, we focus on Virginia and its detailed information on how voter list maintenance is conducted. Every year since 2013, the State Department of Elections has provided detailed reports to the Virginia General Assembly about all voter roll maintenance activity. For those who want to see a little of how the sausage gets made, these reports are invaluable. 

There are numerous activities Virginia state and local election officials perform as part of the list maintenance process including:

  • Mailing confirmation notices to voters identified as having possibly moved and asking them to verify their address, or request cancellation of their registration.
  • The matching of death records, felony conviction information and mentally incapacitated adjudications on a monthly basis with the voter registration system for further review and processing by local election officials. 
  • The matching of non-citizen records reported from the department of motor vehicles with the voter registration system for further review and processing by local election officials.
  • The comparison of voter registration data with other states via programs, such as the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) and the Voter Registration Crosscheck Program.

Throughout March, we will share additional work by states such as Virginia, as well as news, updates, and research related to voter list maintenance.
Keywords
best practices, data, election administration, list maintenance, virginia