Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp Purges 560,000 Voters in Single Day Using "Exact Match" System

On a single day in late July 2017, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office removes 560,000 Georgians—8% of the state’s registered voters—from the voter rolls in what may be the largest mass purge in U.S. history. The purge uses Georgia’s aggressive “use it or lose it” policy combined with a new “exact match” system that disproportionately targets Black and minority voters for minor discrepancies in registration records.

The Mass Purge

In one day, Kemp’s office purges over half a million voters flagged for missing too many elections. Of the 560,000 removed, 107,000 are purged solely because they chose not to vote in previous elections and failed to respond to mailed notices from the state. The remaining voters are removed for various administrative reasons, often without adequate notice or opportunity to verify their information.

The scale is extraordinary. Removing 560,000 voters in a single day represents 8% of Georgia’s entire registered electorate—creating chaos and confusion as hundreds of thousands of Georgians suddenly find themselves unable to vote without re-registering. Many voters discover their removal only when attempting to vote in subsequent elections, too late to remedy the situation.

During Kemp’s tenure as Secretary of State, he oversees the purge of 1.4 million voters total, with 668,000 removed in 2017 alone. This aggressive purging far exceeds rates in comparable states, raising concerns about systematic disenfranchisement rather than routine voter roll maintenance.

“Exact Match” System

In 2017, Georgia implements a new “exact match” law requiring voter registration applications to precisely match information on file with the Georgia Department of Driver Services or Social Security Administration. Minor discrepancies—a missing hyphen, apostrophe, middle initial, or spelling variation—trigger holds on registrations or flags for purging.

The exact match system proves particularly problematic for voters with hyphenated names, those who have recently married or changed names, naturalized citizens whose names may have variations in different databases, and anyone whose name was entered differently across various government systems. These issues disproportionately affect women (due to marriage name changes), immigrants, and people of color with non-Anglo names more likely to be spelled inconsistently across databases.

Before the 2018 election, exact match holds up 53,000 voter registration applications, with 70% of applicants being African American despite Black Georgians representing only 32% of the state’s population. This stark racial disparity exposes the discriminatory impact of facially neutral administrative requirements.

“Use It Or Lose It” Policy

Georgia’s “use it or lose it” policy automatically removes voters who haven’t participated in recent elections and don’t respond to a mailed notice. The policy assumes that failure to vote indicates a voter has moved or become ineligible, rather than simply choosing not to vote in particular elections—effectively treating non-voting as grounds for disenfranchisement.

The mailed notices often go unnoticed, as they resemble junk mail and many voters don’t realize they require a response to maintain registration. APM Reports investigation finds that voters removed under this policy often haven’t moved and remain eligible—they simply didn’t vote and didn’t respond to easily-overlooked mail.

This policy particularly impacts young voters, low-income voters, and people of color—groups with historically lower turnout rates due to structural barriers and who therefore face higher risk of purging for non-participation. The system creates a feedback loop where voters facing barriers to voting are then removed for not voting, further entrenching disenfranchisement.

Conflict of Interest and Timing

The timing and scale of the purges become even more controversial when Kemp announces his candidacy for governor in 2017. As Secretary of State, Kemp oversees election administration while simultaneously running for office—an extraordinary conflict of interest. His aggressive voter purges occur as he campaigns for governor, raising concerns about partisan manipulation of the electorate.

Critics argue Kemp uses his position as chief election official to suppress likely Democratic voters before his own election. The racial and partisan demographics of purged voters—disproportionately Black, young, and from Democratic-leaning areas—suggest systematic targeting rather than neutral administrative maintenance.

Impact and Litigation

Voting rights organizations challenge the purges and exact match system in court. Litigation reveals that many purged voters remain eligible and that the exact match system violates the National Voter Registration Act’s protections. Courts order some remedies, but the purges largely remain in effect through the 2018 election.

The 2018 gubernatorial race between Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams occurs under the shadow of these purges. Abrams ultimately loses by fewer than 55,000 votes—a margin smaller than the number of voters purged for non-voting alone. Questions about whether purged eligible voters could have changed the outcome persist, though they cannot be definitively answered.

Significance

Georgia’s mass voter purge demonstrates how facially neutral administrative requirements can achieve discriminatory outcomes at scale. The combination of aggressive “use it or lose it” policies and “exact match” verification creates a system that systematically removes minority voters at higher rates than white voters while maintaining plausible deniability through neutral-sounding rules.

The purges illustrate the evolution of voter suppression in the post-Shelby County era. Without preclearance, Georgia implements aggressive purging that would likely have faced federal scrutiny under the Voting Rights Act. The timing—immediately after Shelby County eliminated preclearance—demonstrates how quickly states exploit the removal of federal oversight.

Kemp’s role as both election administrator and candidate exemplifies the inherent corruption of partisan control over election mechanics. His ability to purge voters while running for office creates obvious opportunities for self-dealing, yet legal and political systems struggle to provide effective remedies.

The scale of the purge—560,000 in one day, 1.4 million total during Kemp’s tenure—transforms voter roll maintenance from routine administrative activity into systematic disenfranchisement. The racial disparities in exact match holds and purge rates expose how modern voter suppression uses bureaucratic mechanisms and data systems to achieve discriminatory effects that would be illegal if implemented through explicitly racial criteria.

Georgia’s purges become a national model for aggressive voter roll maintenance as a suppression tactic, with other Republican-controlled states implementing similar policies. The combination of mass purges, exact match requirements, and use-it-or-lose-it policies creates a comprehensive system for shrinking the electorate in ways that predictably disadvantage minority and Democratic voters.