Purged

In November, many swing state voters won’t get to cast a ballot. That’s by design.

- By Jules Julien

In February, Michelle Mackey, a 53-year-old Milwaukee resident, went to cast her ballot in a local primary for mayor and county executive. Mackey describes herself as an “avid voter” who participates regularly in state and national elections, and took part in voter registration drives in 2016. But when she arrived at her polling place at Washington High School, in the city’s Sherman Park neighborhood, which is predominantly Black, she said she was told there was no record of her registration. “I was mad as hell,” she recalled.

She feared she had been purged from the voter rolls—and with good reason. Just before Christmas, she saw on the news that Wisconsin had identified 232,000 voters it claimed had moved and had been ordered to remove them from its registration lists within 30 days if they did not respond to a mailing.

It’s not exactly clear why Mackey was told she was not registered to vote. Just in case, she’d come with her ID and electric bill. She was able to cast a ballot that day, and records show she was still in the poll book. But the whole experience left her upset. The state’s effort to remove voters, Mackey said, was “a slap in the face to minorities and people of color.”