Newly appointed Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schelder (R) announced that 121,840 voters were recently purged from the Louisiana Voting rolls.
“This year’s total is significantly higher than usual since the Legislature appropriately suspended the canvass in 2006,” said Schedler.
“Many of these voters would have ordinarily been canceled in 2008,” Schedler said, “but they’ve had an extra two years to verify their addresses and vote in any election. This leads me to believe the vast majority of the voters to be canceled simply aren’t here anymore.”
While this is not unique to Louisiana, frequent changes of address and inactivity are the most prevalent reasons for removing individuals from a state’s rolls. According to Louisiana law, county registrars are to remove names of voters from their rolls every two years after verifying residency through various methods of canvassing. It is hard to believe, however, that more than 120,000 people were properly purged from Louisiana’s rolls after nearly 63% of the states registered voters cast their ballot in the November 2008 election.
A voter purge of 121,840 people is equal to the removal of an entire large Louisiana city from the voting rolls. Over 45,000 voters from New Orleans were purged, due to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The last major purge occurred in 2008.
State elections begin in 2011.
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