Associated Press: Court: NY must release inactive voter list to poll workers

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that New York must provide local poll workers with the names of one million New Yorkers who registered to vote but are considered inactive by the state.

New York, like other states, can label a voter who appears to have moved “inactive.” Voters labeled inactive can cast a provisional ballot — called an affidavit ballot — that will be counted once the state verifies the voter. But government reform group Common Cause says many poll workers are not familiar with that process, and the result is many inactive voters struggle to vote or are prevented from voting.

The group argued in a 2017 lawsuit that errors made by the Postal Service and other registries can lead to voters being wrongly declared inactive. The lawsuit claimed tens of thousands of New Yorkers were improperly labeled inactive even though they still live at the addresses where they’re registered. …

Still, Common Cause New York Executive Director Susan Lerner said the judge’s decision “shines a light” on the process that New York uses to label some voters as inactive. She said she hopes lawmakers will look at such issues this year.

For now, she said the judge’s decision means that poll workers at 2020 elections will have easy access to a list of inactive voters.

“For the poll workers, this is so much easier,” she said. “Right now what happens when someone isn’t on the active list, poll workers often don’t know what to do. They get confused, they send people to different places and they send people away. This simplifies it.”