Louisiana restores active status to about 67,000 voters wrongly marked inactive

Mixed · 2During routine maintenance on a Monday night, a mistake at the Louisiana Secretary of State's office switched about 67,000 voters statewide to inactive status. 1 2 Mixed · 2Trey Williams, the office's deputy secretary for communications, attributed it to human error and said staff identified the problem immediately and began correcting it. 1 2 Mixed · 2Williams told The Center Square the affected voters were moved back to active status; the office had earlier expected to complete the restoration by Wednesday. 2 1

Mixed · 2The office said the error did not affect anyone's eligibility or ability to vote, because inactive voters remain eligible and an inactive designation does not cancel a registration. 1 2 Left · 1East Baton Rouge Parish voter Courtney Price, who has lived at the same address for over 10 years, noticed her status had changed to inactive on Monday evening. The parish registrar, Steve Raborn, told her the problem originated with the Secretary of State. 1 Mixed · 2Normally, voters are marked inactive when a parish registrar cannot verify their address during an annual canvass or when mail is returned as undeliverable. Inactive voters must confirm their address when voting, and those who neither confirm nor vote may be removed after two consecutive federal election cycles. 1 2

Mixed · 2The office did not explain the specific action that caused the change, did not describe the new safeguards, and could not give a parish-by-parish count. It encouraged voters to check their registration at Geauxvote.com or in the Geauxvote app. 2 1