Does Wisconsin have twice as many registered voters as active voters?
Wisconsin has 4.27 million inactive voters and 3.66 million registered voters.
Inactive voters are not registered and are not eligible to vote unless they re-register on or before an Election Day.
Republican Eric Hovde added the numbers together in claiming Wisconsin has “almost 8 million registered voters on our voter rolls with only 3.5 million active voters.”
Hovde raised election administration questions one week after losing Nov. 5, 2024, to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin. Unofficially, Baldwin won by less than 1 percentage point.
People are made inactive when they die, move and register in another state, are convicted of a felony, are adjudicated incompetent to vote, or have their name purged.
Purging occurs every two years. The Wisconsin Election Commission is required to make registered voters inactive if they have not voted in the past four years and have not responded to a mailing about their registration status.