NEW ORLEANS — At the axis of the Recall Campaign versus Secretary of State lawsuit is the question: “how many registered voters are active, and how many are inactive?”
But what do those terms really mean? And who is considered inactive?
First, you’ve got to know that The Louisiana Secretary of State is responsible for keeping an updated voter roll and it relies heavily on the Registrar of Voters to accomplish that task.
Classifying voters as “active” versus “inactive” is not the same as “purging” voters from the rolls. The difference is important.
To simplify the terms, an “active voter” is a fairly regular voter who keeps their address current.
An “inactive voter” is someone who has moved, and not confirmed or updated their new address and also hasn’t voted in the last two federal elections or any other race in between.
Purging voters involves removing any voters who have died or been convicted of a felony.
Page 67 of the Louisiana Election Code lays out the limitations of inactive voters.
Inactive voters are not purged from the voter role, but because they haven’t voted in years, they’re not counted in the number of ballots required for election, they’re not counted in the precinct, and they’re not counted in the number of signatures needed for petitions, like the recall.
If they do vote or sign a petition and confirm their address, they once again become an active voter.
Mayor Latoya Cantrell has said the recall campaign’s lawsuit to correct the number of inactive voters in Orleans Parish will disenfranchise Black voters. But the process of moving voters to ‘inactive’ status was actually created to protect Black voters from being purged from voter rolls, which was attempted by the Republican party in 1986 and 1987.
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 or the ‘Motor Voter Act’ limits the reasons a state may remove a voter from the rolls. It requires states keep their lists current, which is why states established the ‘active’ and ‘inactive’ classifications.
Orleans Parish is not purging registered voters based on this lawsuit. If you’re considered inactive by the state, you can still vote and you can still update your address online by using the Geaux Vote system. https://voterportal.sos.la.gov/Home/VoterLogin
If you think you’re an inactive voter, you can lookup your name online. https://voterportal.sos.la.gov/inactivevoters
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