On the surface, voter roll purges mitigate fraud by removing from registration banks deceased people, changed names, and those who leave the state. In practice, these lists often take infrequent voters along with them, mostly the young and people of color. Since 2001, Virginia purged 46,637 voters from its list, Florida 182,000, Indiana 481,235, Georgia 591,549, and Ohio 2 million.

Voter registration became a national issue after record-low turnout in the 1988 election. In response, Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993 to standardize processes, expand registration locations, and create mail-in options. Registration increased by 3.3 million voters over several years, but the NVRA’s guidelines on voter roll maintenance, however, enabled foul play.

In Ohio, 1.2 million out of the 2 million voters removed were only infrequent voters, as a 1994 state supplement allowed officials to remove those who don’t vote after six years. This particularly harms African Americans and city residents: Obama carried Cleveland by 69% of the vote in 2012, but the amount of Democrat voters dropped to 66% in 2016 while Republican levels remained the same.

Under Secretary of State Brian Kemp, Georgia maintained a growing population but falling voter numbers. Ineptitude defined Kemp’s elections office as it lost records for about 40,000 residents and leaked Social Security and driver’s license data twice.