Supreme Court allows voter purges in states like Georgia
By Mark Niesse | Atlanta Journal-Constitution | June 11, 2018
Georgia and other states can target people who haven’t cast ballots in a while in efforts to purge their voting rolls, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday in an Ohio case that has drawn wide attention amid stark partisan divisions and the approach of the 2018 elections.
By a 5-4 vote that split the conservative and liberal justices, the court rejected arguments that the practice violates a federal law intended to increase the ranks of registered voters. A handful of other states also use voters’ inactivity to trigger a process that could lead to their removal from the voting rolls.
Caption for the photo: Protesters gather during a rally the group Common Cause held in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in January. Voting rights activists rallied to oppose voter roll purges as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Husted v. A Philip Randolph Institute, a challenge to Ohio’s voter roll purges. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)