AB-595/ SB-595: Voter Registration List

Under current law, if a voter who appears on the official voter registration list maintained by the Elections Commission becomes ineligible to vote for any reason, their status is changed from eligible to ineligible on the registration list. That way, the entire voter history for one person stays together, helping to prevent voters from being removed in error or allowing voters to re-register to vote if they become eligible again with their voter registration file in one place. Under the bill, however, if a voter becomes ineligible to vote, they must be “removed from the list” and WEC “must keep permanent record of the removal, including the date of and reason for the removal.” The practical realities of maintaining two lists in addition to separate “permanent records” of each removal remain unanswered.

Another component of the bill requires an audit of the voter registration list to be conducted by the Legislative Audit Bureau, including a procedure involving the federal SAVE system to verify citizenship, which has been found to give results based on incomplete or outdated information. Numerous studies have shown that noncitizen voting is vanishingly rare.