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FACT BRIEF

Did the Wisconsin Elections Commission violate state law by refusing to remove voters from the rolls?

By Erin Gretzinger
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NO

In 2019, conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission challenging the latter's decision not to remove thousands of voters from the registration rolls ahead of the 2020 election.

The voters had been flagged as potentially having moved by a multi-state database of records. WILL argued state law required their names be removed. In 2021, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 5-2 in favor of WEC, saying municipal clerks, not the elections agency, were responsible for cleaning voter rolls. That allowed about 69,000 voters to remain registered.

Some cities, such as Milwaukee, had raised concerns about inaccuracy in the data used to clean the voter rolls. For example, in 2018, WEC discovered that 12,000 Wisconsin voters were removed based on inaccurate records from the state Division of Motor Vehicles and the U.S. Postal Service.

See a full discussion of this at Wisconsin Watch
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
Wisconsin Public Radio Wisconsin Supreme Court Rejects Voter Purge Lawsuit
Wisconsin Public Radio Supreme Court Decision
PBS Wisconsin What Does it Mean to Clean Milwaukee's Voter Rolls?
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Wisconsin Watch
Wisconsin Watch, the news arm of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, increases the quality and quantity of investigative reporting in Wisconsin, while training current and future investigative journalists. Its work fosters an informed citizenry and strengthens democracy.
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Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact —a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all fact briefs here.