The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Ohio’s voter purge law has Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes conducting a voter reassurance campaign in Arizona’s most populated region.
Fontes said the process for removing inactive voters in Arizona is different than Ohio and that when voters do not participate in elections here, “then that person is put on an inactive roll. During that period of time which is four years or two federal election cycles they are ultimately cancelled.”
Fontes also thinks voter purge laws ultimately do more harm than good. “Most of the time these types of laws typically end up disenfranchising more voters than they do securing the voter rolls or quote unquote cleaning things up,” he said.
Arizona recently became an Electronic Registration Information Center ( ERIC) state. As a result, Fontes said the recorder’s office has better data gathering services to reduce registration cancellations.
