# How a Voter Is Removed From the Rolls Every map in this vault's election-mechanics series operates on ballots that were **accepted**. [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]] re-counts them. [[Post-Election Audit Crosswalk]] re-reads a sample of them. [[State Election Contest Crosswalk]] asks a tribunal to set aside the total they produced. [[How a Tie Vote Is Broken]] resolves what happens when the total is equal. Not one of them revisits **acceptance** — and acceptance was decided months earlier, by a process that runs entirely between elections, which is why it is the least observed stage of American election administration and the hardest to reach on a deadline. This map is that process. The queue item that commissioned the map predicted it would show a removal becoming a [[Provisional Ballot]] on election day, and framed the between-elections timing as the structural point. Both are right. The timing is not the finding, though, because of what the research turned up about the one protection federal law actually provides. **First, and the finding: the NVRA's central safeguard is a letter mailed to the address the system has already concluded is wrong.** 52 U.S.C. § 20507(d)(2) forbids removing a registrant for a change of residence unless the state first sends a **forwardable** notice with a postage-prepaid return card — forwardable precisely because the premise of the notice is that the voter may have moved. But the thing that *triggers* the notice is a database asserting the voter is somewhere else. Mississippi ran exactly that loop in 2025–26: the Secretary of State bought address guesses from **Experian**, a consumer credit bureau whose TrueTrace product the company itself says "we don't verify residency" about, rolled it to all 82 counties in July 2025, and at least **50,000 voters were made inactive** on address conflicts. *Mississippi Today*'s reporting found that affected voters "never received the required notice, which was often mailed to incorrect Experian addresses." The statute's protection is therefore conditioned on a delivery the triggering data predicts will fail — **and the voter's resulting silence is read as confirmation of the move.** The procedure converts a failed delivery into consent. **Second, the quiet period protects a method, not a voter.** § 20507(c)(2)(A) requires any program to **systematically** remove ineligible voters to be *complete* 90 days before a federal primary or general — for 3 November 2026, that boundary was **5 August 2026**. The word doing the work is "systematically." § 20507(c)(2)(B) then exempts removals for death, criminal conviction, mental incapacity, voter request and "corrections" from the deadline entirely. So the blackout covers the channel that has a notice procedure and a paper trail, and leaves untouched every channel that has neither — and in 2026 the individualized channel became industrial. On **25 September 2026** the Supreme Court, 6–3 on the emergency docket in **DHS v. League of Women Voters** (No. 26A308), stayed Judge Sparkle Sooknanan's injunction against the rebuilt **SAVE** system, which under [[Executive Order - Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections]] was expanded to hold records of **natural-born citizens**, to reach Social Security Administration records including SSNs, and to permit **bulk search**. Justice Jackson's dissent notes what the stay leaves available: states "could still use the revamped system for individualized voter-roll maintenance." A million individualized inquiries are not a systematic program, and the only federal protection is drawn on that distinction. **Third, the Court will say what "systematic" means five weeks after the election it governs.** Cert was granted **29 June 2026** in **Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota** (No. 25-1017), whose second question presented is squarely whether the NVRA bars a state from running a program within 90 days of a federal election to cancel the registrations of voters who are not U.S. citizens. Oral argument is set for **8 December 2026**. The 2026 quiet period began 5 August 2026 and the election is 3 November 2026; nobody will know what either meant until 2027. **Fourth, the prohibited ground is permitted as the sensor.** § 20507(b)(2) says in one clause that failure to vote "shall not result in the removal of the name of any person," and in the next authorizes the (c) and (d) procedures against a registrant who neither responded to a notice *nor* voted across two consecutive federal general elections. [[Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute]] (June 2018, 5–4, Alito) held that Ohio's use of non-voting as the trigger to *send* the notice "does not strike any registrant solely by reason of the failure to vote." The one absolute prohibition in federal list-maintenance law is satisfied by adding a piece of mail. **Fifth, non-citizenship is not an enumerated federal ground at all.** § 20507(a)(3) lists three and only three: the registrant's own request; state law on criminal conviction or mental incapacity; and the (a)(4) death-or-change-of-residence program. The category that has generated every significant removal fight of 2024–26 appears nowhere in the list, which is why the litigation is about whether it fits inside (a)(4) or escapes the statute entirely. > [!note] How to read this flow > `■` marks a part · `▸` marks a door, track or lane · `⚡` marks the trigger · `◇` marks who decides · `▶` marks the main path · `└▶` marks a branch · `⛔` marks a federally required stop · `⊘` marks **a protection that does not exist** · `✱` marks the structural point of a block · `⚑` marks something **live in 2026** · `†` marks **a figure whose own source flags it as unverified** · `◈` marks **a count that is a definitional artifact**, explained in the Notes · `[bracketed]` notes are dated caveats. Statutory cites are to Title 52 unless marked. **No current officeholder is named on this map**, by design, except where a named officer's own act is the live 2026 record — so it stays true as seats turn over on 3 November 2026. ``` HOW A VOTER IS REMOVED FROM THE ROLLS — four doors out, one of them guarded (as of 9 October 2026) │ Legend: ▸ door / track / lane ⚡ trigger ◇ who decides │ ▶ main path └▶ branch ⛔ federally required stop │ ⊘ a protection that does not exist ✱ the structural point │ ⚑ live in 2026 † source flags its own figure unverified │ ◈ count is a definitional artifact │ │ THE ONE-LINE VERSION: THE ONE PROTECTION FEDERAL LAW GIVES — A FORWARDABLE │ NOTICE WITH A RETURN CARD — IS MAILED TO THE ADDRESS THE TRIGGERING DATABASE │ HAS ALREADY CONCLUDED IS WRONG, AND THE VOTER'S SILENCE IS THEN READ AS │ CONFIRMATION OF THE MOVE. See Part B ▸ 3, then Part D before trusting any │ description of list maintenance as a process with notice in it. │ ■ PART A — THE FOUR DOORS OUT [§ 20507(a)(3): the list is exhaustive] │ │ "shall not remove the name of a registrant ... except — (A) at the request of │ the registrant; (B) as provided by State law, by reason of criminal │ conviction or mental incapacity; or (C) as provided under subsection (a)(4)" │ ├─▸ DOOR 1. AT THE REGISTRANT'S OWN REQUEST .......... § 20507(a)(3)(A) │ ⚡ a signed request ◇ the registrar, no discretion │ ⊘ no notice owed · ⊘ no waiting period · ⊘ EXEMPT from the 90-day rule │ ├─▸ DOOR 2. CRIMINAL CONVICTION ...................... § 20507(a)(3)(B) │ ⚡ a conviction record, matched by the state ◇ STATE LAW decides │ ⊘ no federal notice owed · ⊘ no waiting period · ⊘ EXEMPT from 90 days │ ✱ FEDERAL LAW SETS NO STANDARD HERE AT ALL — it only permits what state │ law already provides, so the scope is 50 different answers and the │ federal floor is zero. See Part C. │ ├─▸ DOOR 3. ADJUDICATED MENTAL INCAPACITY ............ § 20507(a)(3)(B) │ ⚡ a court adjudication ◇ STATE LAW decides; a court, not a registrar │ ⊘ no federal notice owed · ⊘ no waiting period · ⊘ EXEMPT from 90 days │ └─▸ DOOR 4. THE "GENERAL PROGRAM" ................... § 20507(a)(3)(C)+(a)(4) "a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters ... by reason of — (A) the death of the registrant; or (B) a change in the residence of the registrant" ⚡ a database match ◇ the registrar, under §§ (b), (c) and (d) │ ├─▶ 4A. DEATH ......... ⊘ no notice owed · ⊘ EXEMPT from 90 days │ ✱ THE ONLY DOOR THE VOTER CANNOT WALK BACK THROUGH ON ELECTION │ DAY. Part F's affirmation remedy is a change-of-address remedy; │ a living person removed as dead has no § 20507(e) route at all. │ └─▶ 4B. CHANGE OF RESIDENCE ... ⛔ THE ONE GUARDED DOOR → Part B the notice procedure, two federal general elections, the 90-day quiet period, two years of public records, and a right to vote anyway. Everything in this map that looks like due process is here. │ │ ✱ STRUCTURAL POINT OF PART A, AND THE INVERSION THE WHOLE MAP TURNS ON: │ THE PROCEDURE RUNS INVERSELY TO THE FINALITY. The removal a voter can cure │ at the polls with a signature (4B) carries a notice, a card, a grace period │ of two federal general elections, a 90-day blackout and a public record. │ The removals that are categorical and uncurable — dead, convicted, │ adjudicated incompetent — carry NO federal notice, NO waiting period and an │ EXPRESS EXEMPTION from the blackout. § 20507(c)(2)(B) │ │ ✱ AND WHAT IS NOT ON THIS LIST: NON-CITIZENSHIP. It is not an enumerated │ federal ground. Every noncitizen-removal program of 2024–26 therefore has │ to be either a state-law program or an (a)(4) "general program" — which is │ the entire fight in RNC v. Mi Familia Vota. ⚑ See Part G. │ ■ PART B — THE GUARDED DOOR: CHANGE OF RESIDENCE, STEP BY STEP │ ├─▸ 1. THE SENSOR FIRES ......................... § 20507(c)(1) and Part D │ the Postal Service NCOA file is the ONE sensor the statute names and │ blesses; every other sensor in Part D is a state-law invention │ │ │ ├─▶ MOVED WITHIN the registrar's jurisdiction │ │ ▶ the registrar CORRECTS the record and mails a notice │ │ ▶ the voter stays registered — this is not a removal │ │ │ └─▶ MOVED OUTSIDE the registrar's jurisdiction │ ▶ go to step 2. There is no shortcut. § 20507(c)(1)(B)(ii) │ ├─▸ 2. THE WRITTEN-CONFIRMATION SHORTCUT ........ § 20507(d)(1)(A) │ ⚡ the registrant CONFIRMS IN WRITING a move outside the jurisdiction │ ▶ IMMEDIATE REMOVAL. No notice, no waiting, no two elections. │ ✱ This is the only fast path through the guarded door, and it requires │ the voter's own signature. Everything else goes through step 3. │ ├─▸ 3. ⛔ THE NOTICE — THE WHOLE PROTECTION ..... § 20507(d)(2) │ what the statute requires, exactly: │ • sent by FORWARDABLE MAIL │ • containing a POSTAGE-PREPAID, PRE-ADDRESSED RETURN CARD │ • stating that if the voter did NOT move, or moved within the │ jurisdiction, they should return the card by the next registration │ deadline │ • stating that if the card is NOT returned, the voter may be required to │ affirm or confirm their address before voting in a federal election, │ through the day after the SECOND federal general election following │ • stating that failing to vote in that period results in removal │ │ │ ├─▶ CARD RETURNED, no move → nothing happens. The voter is protected. │ ├─▶ CARD RETURNED, moved out → removal under § 20507(d)(1)(A) │ └─▶ CARD NOT RETURNED → step 4 │ │ │ ✱ ✱ THE FINDING. THE NOTICE IS MAILED TO THE ADDRESS ON FILE — the address │ the sensor in step 1 has just asserted is no longer the voter's. The │ statute answers this with the word "forwardable," which works only if │ the Postal Service holds a forwarding order that has not expired. Where │ the sensor is not the NCOA file but a vendor's guess, the notice is │ mailed to the GUESS. ⚑ Mississippi, 2025–26: Experian TrueTrace address │ data, all 82 counties from July 2025, at least 50,000 voters made │ inactive †, and per Mississippi Today affected voters "never received │ the required notice, which was often mailed to incorrect Experian │ addresses." Experian's own position on the product: "we don't verify │ residency." [Miss. HB 1310 (2023) is the state authority] │ ✱ SO THE SILENCE THAT CONVICTS THE VOTER IS PRODUCED BY THE SAME ERROR THE │ NOTICE EXISTS TO CATCH. Non-delivery and non-response are indistinguish- │ able at the registrar's desk, and the statute assigns both to the voter. │ ├─▸ 4. INACTIVE STATUS — REGISTERED, BUT NOT COUNTED AS SUCH │ ⚡ the card was not returned by the next registration deadline │ ▶ the voter may be moved to INACTIVE. They are NOT removed. They may │ still vote — see Part F — but in most states they drop out of the │ "registered voters" denominator, out of absentee-mailing lists, and out │ of party and campaign contact files. │ ✱ THIS IS WHERE THE LARGE NUMBERS LIVE, AND WHY "PURGE" AND "REMOVAL" │ UNDERSTATE THE EXPOSURE. Inactive status is invisible to the voter until │ they try to vote, which is typically the first and only notice that │ works. ⚑ Mississippi's 50,000 were INACTIVATIONS, not removals, and │ voters found out at the polls in the 10 March 2026 primary. │ └─▸ 5. ⛔ REMOVAL, AFTER TWO FEDERAL GENERAL ELECTIONS .... § 20507(d)(1)(B) ⚡ the voter neither responded to the notice NOR voted or appeared to vote from the date of the notice through the day after the SECOND federal general election following it ▶ now the name may come off the list. Elapsed time: roughly four years. ✱ FOUR YEARS IS THE LONGEST MANDATORY WAITING PERIOD IN AMERICAN ELECTION LAW, AND IT PROTECTS ONLY THIS ONE DOOR. The other three remove on the day the record matches. │ ■ PART C — THE PROHIBITED GROUND THAT OPERATES AS THE SENSOR │ │ § 20507(b)(2), one paragraph, two halves that point opposite ways: │ HALF ONE ... any list-maintenance program "shall not result in the removal │ of the name of any person ... by reason of the person's │ failure to vote" │ HALF TWO ... "except that nothing in this paragraph may be construed to │ prohibit a State from using the procedures described in │ subsections (c) and (d) to remove an individual from the │ official list ... if the individual — (A) has not either │ notified the applicable registrar ... or responded during the │ period described in subparagraph (B) to the notice ...; and │ (B) has not voted or appeared to vote ... in any election │ during the period beginning on the date of the notice and │ ending on the day after the date of the second general │ election for Federal office" │ ├─▸ HUSTED v. A. PHILIP RANDOLPH INSTITUTE ....... 584 U.S. ___ (2018) │ decided 11 June 2018 · 5–4 · ALITO, with Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Gorsuch │ ⚡ Ohio used FAILURE TO VOTE for two years as the trigger to SEND the card │ ◇ held: lawful. Ohio "does not strike any registrant solely by reason of │ the failure to vote"; it removes "only when they have failed to vote and │ have failed to respond to a change-of-residence notice." │ ✱ THE WORD CARRYING THE DECISION IS "SOLELY." Non-voting may not be the │ whole reason, so a state adds a letter and non-voting becomes the │ sensor instead of the ground. The prohibition survives intact and stops │ nothing: after Husted, inactivity is the cheapest, broadest trigger │ available, and it is aimed at precisely the registrants least likely to │ return a card. │ ■ PART D — THE SENSORS: WHAT TELLS A STATE YOU MOVED (⚑ this is the live layer) │ │ the statute names ONE and permits the rest by silence │ ├─▸ 1. USPS NATIONAL CHANGE OF ADDRESS (NCOA) ...... § 20507(c)(1) — NAMED │ the only sensor Congress wrote into the Act. A state that uses it │ satisfies the (a)(4) duty by its terms. │ ├─▸ 2. ERIC — THE MULTISTATE CROSS-MATCH ........... membership, not statute │ member-state obligations: request and ACT ON at least one list-maintenance │ report a year (in-state movers · movers to another member state · the │ deceased · duplicate registrations), AND mail notices to people found │ eligible but unregistered — the one list-maintenance instrument in the │ country that is required to ADD voters as well as subtract them. │ ✱ WHICH IS WHY LEAVING IT CUTS BOTH WAYS, AND WHY NINE STATES LEFT: │ LA (2022) · AL (Jan 2023) · FL · MO · WV · OH (Mar 2023) · IA (Jun 2023) │ · VA (announced Aug 2023) · TX (Jul 2023) │ ⚑ VIRGINIA REVERSED — executive order 25 March 2026 directing a return, │ plus VA2026 S 57 signed in April 2026. The only re-entry so far. │ ├─▸ 3. STATE DMV / MOTOR VEHICLE RECORDS ........... state law │ ⚑ the 2024 Virginia program ran on DAILY DMV feeds — see Part G. │ ├─▸ 4. DHS "SAVE" + SSA RECORDS .................... ⚑ REBUILT 2025–26 │ Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, a DHS database in use │ since 1986 for benefits and licence eligibility. Under EO 14248 │ (25 March 2025) it was rebuilt to: hold records of NATURAL-BORN CITIZENS · │ reach SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION records including SSNs · permit │ BULK SEARCH by the entities that use it. │ ⚑ FIVE STATES NOW MANDATE SAVE CHECKS OF ALL REGISTERED VOTERS: │ IA · KS · LA · MS · TN. NORTH CAROLINA requires annual checks by │ ADMINISTRATIVE RULE of the State Board — not by statute. │ ✱ THE TOOL WAS BUILT FOR INDIVIDUAL BENEFIT ELIGIBILITY AND IS NOW A │ LIST-MAINTENANCE SENSOR, WHICH IS WHY THE "SYSTEMATIC" QUESTION IN │ PART E IS NOW THE WHOLE GAME. │ ├─▸ 5. DEATH RECORDS .............. 52 U.S.C. § 21083 (HAVA § 303) coordination │ the statewide database required by HAVA must coordinate with state death │ records and state felony-conviction records. Door 4A and Door 2 run here. │ ├─▸ 6. JURY SUMMONS RETURNS, UNDELIVERABLE MAIL, TAX NOTICES ...... state law │ └─▸ 7. ⚑ CONSUMER CREDIT DATA ..................... THE OUTER EDGE MISSISSIPPI: Experian TrueTrace address guesses, piloted in Lafayette County 2024, statewide to all 82 counties July 2025; ~50,000 voters made inactive on address conflicts †; $50,000 paid to Experian. The vendor disclaims residency verification. Authority: HB 1310 (2023), which lets the Secretary of State use "reliable information" to verify addresses. ✱ THE STATUTE SAYS "RELIABLE" AND DELEGATES THE DETERMINATION OF RELIABILITY TO THE OFFICE DOING THE REMOVING. Nothing in federal law qualifies a sensor at all: § 20507 regulates the PROCEDURE after a match and is silent on what may produce one. ⊘ NO FEDERAL DATA STANDARD. │ ■ PART E — THE 90-DAY QUIET PERIOD, AND THE WORD IT TURNS ON │ │ § 20507(c)(2)(A): a state "shall complete, not later than 90 days prior to │ the date of a primary or general election for Federal office, any program │ the purpose of which is to SYSTEMATICALLY remove the names of ineligible │ voters from the official lists of eligible voters" │ ├─▸ FOR 3 NOVEMBER 2026, THE BOUNDARY WAS ⚑ 5 AUGUST 2026. │ DOJ guidance treats the covered activities as including general mailings │ and door-to-door canvasses. │ ├─▸ WHAT § 20507(c)(2)(B) EXPRESSLY EXEMPTS FROM THE DEADLINE: │ • removal at the registrant's request ............ Door 1 │ • removal by reason of death ..................... Door 4A │ • removal for criminal conviction or mental incapacity ... Doors 2 and 3 │ • CORRECTIONS to a registrant's record ........... unbounded by its terms │ ✱ THREE OF THE FOUR DOORS ARE OPEN ALL YEAR. The blackout closes one. │ └─▸ ✱ ✱ SO THE QUIET PERIOD PROTECTS A METHOD, NOT A VOTER. It is a limit on the SHAPE of a removal process, not on the number of people removed, and a state that can characterise its work as individualised rather than systematic is outside it. In 2026 the characterisation got easier: ⚑ DHS v. LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS, No. 26A308, 25 SEPTEMBER 2026, 6–3, unsigned, emergency docket. The Court STAYED Judge Sparkle Sooknanan's (D.D.C.) injunction against the rebuilt SAVE system — she had found the administration "knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens" and that some states removed U.S. citizens from the rolls on inaccurate information; the D.C. Circuit had denied a stay earlier in September. SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN and JACKSON dissented; Jackson wrote that the harm of disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the government's — and noted that states "could still use the revamped system for individualized voter-roll maintenance." ✱ BULK SEARCH PLUS AN INDIVIDUALISED-INQUIRY CARVE-OUT IS A SYSTEMATIC PROGRAM THAT DOES NOT MEET THE DEFINITION OF ONE. │ ■ PART F — ELECTION DAY: WHAT A REMOVED OR INACTIVE VOTER CAN STILL DO │ ├─▸ 1. THE § 20507(e) AFFIRMATION — the statute's own second chance │ a registrant who did not return the card may still vote: │ ├─▶ (e)(1) moved WITHIN the same polling area → vote there after │ │ affirming the new address, orally or in writing │ ├─▶ (e)(2) moved to another polling area in the same jurisdiction AND │ │ congressional district → vote at the FORMER polling place, at a │ │ CENTRAL LOCATION, or (where state law allows) at the new │ │ polling place; a state offering one need not offer the others │ └─▶ (e)(3) records show a move OUT of the polling area → the registrant │ may STILL VOTE THERE by affirming they live at the address on │ file │ ✱ THIS IS A REAL AND UNDERUSED REMEDY, AND IT IS WHY INACTIVE STATUS IS │ NOT DISENFRANCHISEMENT ON PAPER. It fails in practice for one reason: │ it requires a poll worker to know it exists and the voter to be told. │ ⊘ NOTHING IN THE STATUTE REQUIRES THE VOTER TO BE INFORMED OF IT. │ ├─▸ 2. THE PROVISIONAL BALLOT — where the affirmation is not offered │ ⚡ the voter is not on the roll, or is listed inactive, and no one invokes │ (e). HAVA § 302 guarantees the ballot; nearly every consequential rule │ about it is state law — the provisional ballot, covered on its own page. │ ⚑ MISSISSIPPI, 10 MARCH 2026 PRIMARY: inactive voters discovered their │ status at the polls; some were given affidavit ballots, some left │ without voting, and one 12-year voter received no ballot to mark at all. │ └─▸ 3. ⊘ AND IF THE DOOR WAS 4A, 2 OR 3 — NOTHING HERE APPLIES. § 20507(e) is a change-of-address remedy by its terms. A living voter removed as deceased, or removed on a conviction match that is wrong or belongs to someone else, has no statutory election-day cure. They are a new registrant, against a registration deadline that has passed. │ ■ PART G — THE 2026 LIVE RECORD ⚑ │ ├─▸ THE LITIGATION THAT WILL DEFINE THE TERM │ RNC v. MI FAMILIA VOTA, No. 25-1017 (with Nos. 25-1019, 25-1022) │ cert granted .......... 29 JUNE 2026 │ QP 2 ................. whether the NVRA prohibits a state from running a │ program, within 90 days of a federal election, to │ cancel the registrations of voters who are not │ U.S. citizens │ QP 1 ................. whether the NVRA or a federal consent decree bars │ Arizona from demanding documentary proof of │ citizenship on the state registration form │ below ................ the Ninth Circuit held Arizona's citizenship-based │ cancellations violate the quiet period │ ARGUMENT ............. 8 DECEMBER 2026 │ ✱ THIRTY-FIVE DAYS AFTER THE ELECTION THE 2026 QUIET PERIOD WAS PROTECTING. │ ├─▸ THE PRECEDENT EVERYONE IS ARGUING FROM IS AN UNEXPLAINED ORDER │ BEALS v. VIRGINIA COALITION FOR IMMIGRANT RIGHTS, No. 24A407, │ 30 October 2024 — the Court stayed Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles's order │ halting Virginia's noncitizen-cancellation program; brief, unsigned, NO │ REASONING; Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson would have denied. More than │ 1,600 registrations had been cancelled since early August, at least some │ belonging to U.S. citizens. Trigger: a 7 AUGUST 2024 executive order │ directing the DMV to supply election officials daily data; those flagged │ were cancelled unless they verified citizenship within 14 days. │ ✱ 7 AUGUST 2024 WAS EXACTLY 90 DAYS BEFORE 5 NOVEMBER 2024 — the program │ was launched on the first day of the quiet period it was accused of │ violating. ✱ AND THE DISTRICT COURT'S ORDER EXPRESSLY LEFT INDIVIDUAL │ REMOVALS AVAILABLE, which is the systematic/individualised line of │ Part E drawn a year before SAVE made it load-bearing. │ ├─▸ THE FEDERAL DATA DEMAND │ at least 48 STATES AND DC received DOJ requests for complete statewide │ voter registration lists — including driver's licence numbers and partial │ Social Security numbers — plus ballots, equipment access and 2020 records. │ ≥16 states supplied full lists (AL AK AR FL IN IA LA MS NE OH OK SC SD TN │ TX WY); MS, SD and TN supplied theirs but refused to sign DOJ's │ confidential MOU; CO and MO refused equipment access. DOJ SUED 30 STATES │ AND DC; COURTS DISMISSED 26, the Sixth Circuit affirming the Michigan │ dismissal, and DOJ settled and dismissed as to Oklahoma. [Brennan Center │ tracker] Common Cause sued on 21 APRIL 2026 to block a national voter │ database and the running of voter data through SAVE. │ ✱ THE LOSING RECORD IS THE POINT: THE DEMAND DID NOT NEED TO WIN. Sixteen │ states handed the lists over voluntarily, so a national file assembled │ itself out of the compliant half while the litigation ran. │ ├─▸ THE 2026 STATE LEGISLATIVE LAYER │ SAVE checks of ALL registered voters MANDATED ... IA · KS · LA · MS · TN │ checks against unspecified state/federal databases ... FL · KY · UT │ DMV-based proof of citizenship ................... FL · MS · UT │ proof of citizenship for STATE ELECTIONS ONLY ..... SD · UT │ (federal elections keep a licence-or-SSN attestation under penalty of │ perjury — the SAVE Act's federal version remains stalled in Congress) │ NEW HAMPSHIRE ... S.B. 438 links voter and licence data; separately a │ federal court STRUCK DOWN its proof-of-citizenship law, │ restoring attestation │ ── AND THE TWO THAT RAN THE OTHER WAY ── │ VIRGINIA ....... H 972 LIMITS SAVE use to prevent erroneous removals; │ S 57 rejoins ERIC │ WASHINGTON ..... H 1916 adds procedural protections against erroneous │ cancellation │ ✱ SEVEN STATES WROTE A DATABASE INTO THEIR LIST-MAINTENANCE LAW IN ONE │ SESSION AND TWO WROTE PROTECTIONS AGAINST ONE. Both moves are about the │ same database. [FL's proof-of-citizenship law will not take effect │ before the midterms; effective dates for the rest are not established │ here — see Note 11] │ └─▸ THE SCALE, HONESTLY STATED MIT Election Data and Science Lab: MORE THAN 21 MILLION REGISTRATIONS REMOVED across the 2022 and 2024 general-election cycles combined — 9.1% of registered voters — the three commonest reasons being failure to return a confirmation notice, failure to vote in two consecutive federal general elections, and moving out of the jurisdiction. ◈ No per-reason national count exists in that source, and its own registered-voter base figure does not reconcile with the percentage — see Note 12. 48 states disqualify on certain convictions; 29 remove voters a court has found mentally incompetent. ⊘ THERE IS NO NATIONAL COUNT OF WRONGFUL REMOVALS, because no instrument produces one. │ ■ PART H — WHAT NO POST-ELECTION INSTRUMENT REACHES │ │ the series, laid against this process: │ RECOUNT ......... re-counts ACCEPTED ballots .......... ⊘ cannot reach a removal │ AUDIT ........... re-reads a SAMPLE of accepted ballots ⊘ cannot reach a removal │ CANVASS ......... totals accepted ballots ............. ⊘ cannot reach a removal │ CONTEST ......... attacks the RESULT in a tribunal .... ⚠ in principle only │ TIE-BREAK ....... resolves equal totals ............... ⊘ cannot reach a removal │ └─▸ ✱ THE CLOSING STRUCTURAL POINT. A REMOVAL IS DECIDED IN MARCH AND BECOMES UNREVIEWABLE IN NOVEMBER. Every instrument the vault has mapped for correcting an election operates on the ballots that were cast, and a removal's effect is a ballot that was never cast — which leaves no artifact to recount, no sample to audit, and no number to contest. The only in-election trace is a provisional ballot, and whether the voter is ever told it was rejected is a matter of state law. ⊘ IN NO STATE IS A LIST-MAINTENANCE ERROR A GROUND FOR THE ELECTION TO BE RERUN. ``` ## Notes 1. **The notice is the only protection, and it is addressed to the disputed fact.** This is the finding, and it is worth stating as plainly as the statute does not. 52 U.S.C. § 20507(d)(1) makes the forwardable notice with a prepaid return card the condition precedent to any change-of-address removal. The notice goes to the address of record. The reason the notice is being sent is that something has concluded the voter is no longer at the address of record. Congress's answer is the word *forwardable* — which transfers the protection to a Postal Service forwarding order the voter may never have filed, which expires, and which the statute neither requires nor verifies. Where the triggering sensor is the USPS NCOA file (§ 20507(c)(1)) the loop is at least closed, because the file is the forwarding system's own record. Where the sensor is anything else, the loop is open, and the degree to which it is open is a function of how wrong the sensor is. 2. **Mississippi is the open loop, documented.** The Secretary of State's office licensed Experian's TrueTrace address product, piloted it in Lafayette County in 2024, and rolled it to all 82 counties in July 2025; *Mississippi Today*'s analysis of voter records found at least 50,000 voters made inactive on address conflicts since the rollout, with the Experian data a key source, and reported that affected voters "never received the required notice, which was often mailed to incorrect Experian addresses." The paper separately reported a $50,000 payment to Experian. Experian's position on the product, quoted in the reporting: "we don't verify residency." State authority is HB 1310 (2023), which permits the use of "reliable information" to verify voter addresses and leaves the reliability determination to the office. The exact number of *wrongly* inactivated voters is unknown and the source says so; the 50,000 figure is marked † on the map for that reason. Voters discovered their status at the 10 March 2026 primary. 3. **The procedure runs inversely to the finality.** Set the four doors of Part A against what each one owes the voter and the inversion is exact. Door 4B — moved, the most curable and least certain of the four — carries a forwardable notice, a prepaid card, inactive status rather than immediate removal, roughly four years of grace, a 90-day blackout, two years of public records under § 20507(i), and an election-day affirmation right under § 20507(e). Doors 1, 2, 3 and 4A — request, conviction, adjudicated incapacity, death — carry no federally required notice, no waiting period, an express exemption from the blackout under § 20507(c)(2)(B), and no election-day cure. A living voter removed as deceased has strictly less federal process available than a voter the NCOA file thinks moved across a county line. 4. **The quiet period is a rule about method.** § 20507(c)(2)(A) suspends only a program whose purpose is to *systematically* remove. Everything in Part E follows from that one adverb: the exemptions in (c)(2)(B), the district court in *Beals* leaving individual removals available while halting the program, and Justice Jackson's observation in the *League of Women Voters* dissent that states may still use the rebuilt SAVE system for individualised maintenance. What the 2025–26 SAVE rebuild changed is the cost of individualisation. A sensor that permits bulk search, holds natural-born-citizen records and reaches SSA data produces individualised inquiries at the volume of a program, which is a result the 1993 drafting did not anticipate because in 1993 individualised meant slow. 5. **"Systematic" has no judicial definition, and will not have one before the election it governs.** Cert was granted in *RNC v. Mi Familia Vota*, No. 25-1017, on 29 June 2026; the second question presented is whether the NVRA bars a within-90-days program to cancel the registrations of voters who are not U.S. citizens; argument is set for 8 December 2026 — thirty-five days after the 3 November 2026 general election, whose quiet period began 5 August 2026. The Ninth Circuit held Arizona's citizenship-based cancellations violate the quiet period, so that holding governs the Ninth Circuit through the midterms and is under review afterwards. The companion dockets are Nos. 25-1019 and 25-1022; the SCOTUSblog case page does not state that they are consolidated, so the map does not assert it. 6. **The precedent being argued from is an order with no reasoning.** *Beals v. Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights*, No. 24A407, 30 October 2024: the Court stayed Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles's order halting Virginia's noncitizen-cancellation program, in a brief unsigned order with no explanation, with Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson noting they would deny. More than 1,600 registrations had been cancelled since early August 2024, at least some belonging to U.S. citizens, triggered by a 7 August 2024 executive order directing daily DMV data to election officials, with cancellation unless the voter verified citizenship within 14 days. **7 August 2024 was exactly 90 days before 5 November 2024.** The arithmetic is given here rather than quoted from a source: the coincidence of the launch date with the quiet-period boundary is this page's own observation and is stated as arithmetic, not as a finding about intent. 7. **Husted's load-bearing word is "solely."** 584 U.S. ___ (2018), decided 11 June 2018, 5–4, Alito writing for Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas and Gorsuch. Ohio's process used two years of non-voting as the trigger to mail the confirmation card. Alito: Ohio "does not strike any registrant solely by reason of the failure to vote" and removes "only when they have failed to vote and have failed to respond to a change-of-residence notice." The Wikipedia article on the case gives both 10 and 11 June 2018 and the two dates conflict in that source; 11 June 2018 is the decision date used here. The consequence for Part B is that the cheapest available sensor is also the one most correlated with the failure to return a card, so the trigger and the confirmation failure are not independent events. 8. **ERIC is the only list-maintenance instrument obliged to add voters.** Membership requires requesting and acting on at least one list-maintenance report a year — in-state movers, movers to another member state, the deceased, duplicate registrations — *and* mailing notices to people identified as eligible but unregistered. Nine states withdrew between 2022 and 2023: Louisiana (suspended January 2022, withdrew July 2022), Alabama (January 2023), Florida, Missouri and West Virginia (announced March 2023), Ohio (later in March 2023), Iowa (effective June 2023), Virginia (announced August 2023) and Texas (finalised July 2023). Membership stood at 24 states and the District of Columbia as of October 2024. ⚑ Virginia reversed in 2026 — a 25 March 2026 executive order directing a return, and S 57 signed in April 2026 — the only re-entry recorded. A current member count as of October 2026 was not established to two sources and is therefore not stated on the map. 9. **There is no federal standard for what may produce a match.** § 20507 regulates what a state must do *after* a record suggests ineligibility and says nothing about what may generate the suggestion. HAVA § 303 (52 U.S.C. § 21083) requires the statewide database to coordinate with state death and felony records but imposes no accuracy standard on the matching. The practical floor is therefore state law, and Mississippi's "reliable information" shows how low that floor can be set. This is the single largest gap on the map and the most consequential thing it identifies and does not resolve. 10. **The DOJ data demand's litigation record is not the measure of its effect.** Per the Brennan Center's tracker, at least 48 states and DC received requests for complete statewide registration lists including driver's licence numbers and partial Social Security numbers; at least 16 states provided or committed to provide full lists; DOJ sued 30 states and DC, and courts dismissed 26 of those cases, with the Sixth Circuit affirming the Michigan dismissal and DOJ settling and dismissing as to Oklahoma. Mississippi, South Dakota and Tennessee provided rolls while refusing to sign DOJ's confidential memorandum of understanding; Colorado and Missouri refused equipment access. Common Cause and four members sued on 21 April 2026 to block a national voter database and the running of voter data through SAVE. The tracker page carries a 2025 publication date and the demands are described as beginning "in May," so the start month is given without a year here. 11. **The 2026 state legislative layer is real but its effective dates are not established.** Voting Rights Lab's 2026 session review identifies mandated SAVE checks of all registered voters in Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee; checks against unspecified state and federal databases in Florida, Kentucky and Utah; DMV-based proof of citizenship in Florida, Mississippi and Utah; state-elections-only proof of citizenship in South Dakota and Utah; New Hampshire's S.B. 438 linking voter and licence data alongside a federal court striking down its proof-of-citizenship law; Virginia's H 972 limiting SAVE use and S 57 rejoining ERIC; and Washington's H 1916 adding protections against erroneous cancellation. North Carolina's H 958 is pending and its State Board adopted annual SAVE checks by administrative rule rather than statute — the same instrument-tier point [[Ballot Marking Validity Crosswalk]] found for mark standards. **Only one effective date is established: Florida's proof-of-citizenship law will not take effect before the midterms.** The rest are listed on the map without effective dates and should be checked individually before being relied on for 3 November 2026. 12. **The national scale figure is the best available and does not reconcile.** MIT Election Data and Science Lab reports more than 21 million registrations removed across the 2022 and 2024 general-election cycles combined, or 9.1% of registered voters, with the three commonest grounds being failure to return a confirmation notice, failure to vote in two consecutive federal general elections, and moving out of the jurisdiction. Two cautions, both honest: the source gives **no per-reason national counts**, so the three grounds are ranked and not quantified; and 21 million at 9.1% implies a registered base near 231 million, which the page's own base figure does not match (it prints what appears to be a typo). The figure is carried because it is the only national number of its kind and it is marked ◈ on the map. The underlying instrument is the EAC's Election Administration and Voting Survey, which is where a per-reason breakdown would have to come from. 13. **What "removal" and "purge" both understate.** The large numbers in Part B step 4 are **inactivations**, not removals. An inactive registrant is still registered and may still vote under § 20507(e), but typically leaves the registered-voter denominator, the absentee-mailing list, and party and campaign contact files — and learns of the status only on attempting to vote. Any argument about purge scale that counts only removals is measuring the smaller number, and any argument that inactivation is harmless is measuring a right that § 20507 does not require anyone to tell the voter about. 14. **Open questions, ranked by what they are worth.** (a) **The highest-value unbuilt work this map identifies: a fifty-state crosswalk of what may legally produce a list-maintenance match** — which states name their permitted data sources in statute, which delegate to "reliable information" or its equivalents, and which say nothing, because Note 9 shows that cell is where the whole process is actually decided and nobody has filled it. (b) Whether any state requires the voter to be *told* about the § 20507(e) affirmation right, which is the cheapest possible fix to Part F and may exist nowhere. (c) The per-reason national removal breakdown from EAVS microdata, which would settle Note 12. (d) Whether any state's notice is sent to *both* the address of record and the sensor's proposed new address — the obvious cure for Note 1, found nowhere in this research. (e) What happens to an inactive voter's absentee ballot application in each state, since the inactive list is usually excluded from the mailing. (f) How a wrongful conviction-based or death-based removal is corrected, and whether any state provides an expedited path inside the registration deadline. (g) The current ERIC membership count and whether any further state has moved in either direction since Virginia. (h) Whether the five SAVE-mandate states' statutes specify what a SAVE non-match *means* procedurally, or leave it to the registrar. (i) Whether "corrections to a registrant's record," exempted from the quiet period by § 20507(c)(2)(B), has ever been construed, since by its terms it is unbounded. (j) The number of registrations cancelled under the 2024 Virginia program that were later restored, which would be the only available measure of a noncitizen program's false-positive rate. (k) Whether the Ninth Circuit's quiet-period holding is being applied by other circuits pending *Mi Familia Vota*. (l) Whether jury-summons returns and undeliverable mail are statutorily authorised sensors anywhere or merely customary. (m) Whether any state's post-election contest statute reaches a list-maintenance error, which Part H asserts is nowhere and which was not exhaustively checked. (n) The downstream effect of leaving ERIC on *registration* totals, since the eligible-but-unregistered mailing obligation is the half nobody counts. ## See also - [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]] · [[Post-Election Audit Crosswalk]] · [[State Election Contest Crosswalk]] · [[How a Tie Vote Is Broken]] — the post-election instruments Part H measures this process against - [[National Voter Registration Act]] · [[Help America Vote Act]] · [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]] — the statutes - [[Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute]] · [[Inactive Voter]] · [[Provisional Ballot]] — created or defined for this map - [[Executive Order - Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections]] · [[SAVE Act]] · [[Electronic Registration Information Center]] — the 2025–26 sensor layer - [[State Election Administration Tree]] · [[How a Midterm Election Is Certified]] · [[How a Candidate Gets on the Ballot]] · [[How a Ballot Is Counted]] · [[Election Canvass]] - [[Voter Suppression]] · [[Brennan Center]] · [[Democracy Docket]] · [[League of Women Voters]] · [[True the Vote]] · [[Judicial Watch]] - [[Department of Homeland Security]] · [[2026 Midterms Hub]] · [[Foundations Hub]]