The number of active registered voters fluctuates as people register or as they are moved from the active list to the inactive list by their municipal clerks, ranging between 3.4 million to 3.7 million. As of August 2021, there are 3.5 million active registered voters. Only active registered voters appear on the poll book and are eligible to receive a ballot, either in-person or by absentee ballot.
In addition to the active registered list, there is an inactive list with about 3.6 million voters. People are made inactive (ineligible) when they die, move and register in another state, are convicted of a felony, are adjudicated incompetent to vote, or are made inactive through statutory voter list maintenance processes (aka “purging). If you’re on the list as inactive, that means you’re not eligible to vote unless you reregister to vote, which includes providing a proof-of-residence document that establishes where you live in Wisconsin (and where you vote).
Wisconsin keeps track of its voters in a statewide voter registration database. The database system is provided and maintained by the Wisconsin Elections Commission, and the voter records are managed by the state’s 1,849 municipal clerks. The entire number of people in the statewide voter registration database is 7.1 million which includes 3.6 million inactive voters.
Why don’t you just delete the inactive voters?
Wisconsin law requires that there be an active and an inactive voter list. There are several reasons for doing this. First, it’s a historical public record, and cannot be deleted. But primarily, it allows your voter history to follow you when you move and reregister, even if there is a gap because you move out of Wisconsin for a few years and then return and register again. Also, if someone is dead and if the clerk gets a registration form for that person, the clerk would see that the person is deceased and would not register them.
Is the voter list bigger than Wisconsin’s adult population?
No. For 2020, the Census estimated there are 4.5 million adults in Wisconsin, and there are 3.5 million active registered voters. The Census numbers will be updated once the actual population figures are released later in 2021.
Voter Registration and List Maintenance Facts
- Wisconsin has a voting-age population of 4,536,293 people, according to estimates by the state’s Demographic Services Center.
- Of those, 3,535,850 people were actively registered to vote on August 1, 2021.
- State law requires the Elections Commission to conduct voter list maintenance every two years after each General Election. The procedure is to identify people who are registered but have not voted in the past four years, contact them by mail, and deactivate them if they do not respond or do not wish to remain registered.
- The number of postcards mailed every two years varies greatly, depending on whether it follows an election for president or for governor. In 2019, the state mailed approximately 113,000 postcards to voters, compared to approximately 381,000 postcards in 2017.
- Congress exempted Wisconsin from the National Voter Registration Act (Motor Voter law) in 1993 because Wisconsin has Election Day Registration. Motor Voter has certain restrictions on list maintenance that do not apply to Wisconsin.
- Wisconsin has had a statewide voter registration list since 2006.
- The Elections Commission works closely with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and the Wisconsin Department of Corrections to identify and remove voters who have died or been convicted of a felony.
- In 2016, Wisconsin joined the multi-state Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which provides the state with additional tools to identify voters who may have moved or died out of state.