NVRA Section 8: List Maintenance and Purging Requirements
Domain 5 covers Section 8: keeping rolls accurate without unlawfully removing voters. This is the Act's most litigated area, so questions favor removal triggers, the confirmation process, and the 90-day election quiet period.
Permissible grounds
Removal is allowed for death; criminal conviction or mental incapacity as provided by state law; a change of residence outside the registrar's jurisdiction; the voter's own request; and failure to respond to a confirmation notice followed by not voting in two consecutive general elections for federal office. Removal for failing to vote is prohibited.
The confirmation process
When a registrant appears to have moved, the state sends a forwardable, pre-addressed, postage-prepaid confirmation notice. If the voter confirms the address in writing or votes in the jurisdiction, the registration stays active. If the notice goes unanswered and the voter does not vote in two consecutive general federal elections, removal is permitted. One undeliverable notice is not enough.
Prohibitions
Procedures must be uniform and nondiscriminatory. Systematic removal programs may not run within 90 days before a primary or general federal election; individualized removals at the voter's request or on grounds such as death or disqualifying conviction are handled separately. A move within the same registrar's jurisdiction is not a ground for removal.
Records
List-maintenance records, including removal documentation, must be kept available for inspection for at least two years.
Worked example
A county purges everyone who skipped the 2022 midterm, finishing in September 2024. Analysis: two independent defects. Failure to vote is not a ground, and the purge is a systematic program inside the 90-day window before the November 2024 federal election. The county needed individualized grounds plus the confirmation notice.
Traps
Reading 'two consecutive general elections' as two years; treating an undeliverable notice as automatic removal; forgetting the 90-day window; assuming the NVRA sets felony rules nationally when state law controls; ignoring two-year record retention.