Secretary of State wants Michiganders to double-check list of voter registrations to be canceled

Michigan Public | By Michelle Jokisch Polo

Published January 31, 2023 at 12:01 PM EST

An absent voter ballot from the Lansing city clerk.

Michigan’s Secretary of State wants people to double check a soon-to-be released list of voter registrations that are up for cancellation.

This year, nearly 100,000 people are slated be removed from the state’s registered voter list. That’s because they haven't participated in any elections since at least 2020 and haven't responded to state notices of cancellation.

The Secretary of State is tasked with regularly maintaining its list of registered voters. This involves removing people from the list who have either moved or died.

Michigan Department of State spokesperson Jake Rollow said the office will be making this list available to the public.

“We believe in transparency, and we want everybody to make sure that their registration is active, if they indeed still live at their address, then we are putting this out publicly so that folks can double check the list and make sure that their registration is up to date,” he said.

“We have reason to believe that the person has moved, either because we got a report that they cancelled their Michigan driver’s license or because an election official sent them mail and that mail was returned as undeliverable,” Rollow added.

The list has previously been made available through Freedom of Information Act requests, but this year anyone can simply ask for it by sending an email to ElectionData@Michigan.gov. Rollow said the list will be available by mid-February.

More than 400,000 registered voters have been removed from the list since 2019. About 8 million people are registered to vote in the state of Michigan.