the North Carolina State and County Boards of Elections have begun purging voter registration rolls, and some of the trends are seriously concerning

(a nerdy but oh so important thread)

here's the change in registration statistics as reported by the NCSBE from election day -> yesterday (January 30) broken down by party affiliation

and here's the same broken down by race

now, some important things to note:

1. this is typical in NC. following every election year, the state board and county boards go through their voter rolls and strike voters (those strikes are usually heavier following presidential elections)

2. there are a lot of reasons someone could be removed from registration rolls, the most common of which is that the registered voter is now deceased

3. that being said, there are a plethora of other less legitimate reasons that a voter could be removed from registration (low/no election participation, unverified address, etc.). these types of strikes do take place, but it's not clear what at regularity this occurs

ok now that all those disclaimers have been noted, let's hit some of these trends:

1. first, let's compare the party affiliation reg change now to that in 2016-2017 ...

1 (cont'd). overall we're seeing about a 75% increase in the amount of voters being purged from registration rolls across the state, and these increases seem to be fairly even along partisan lines (62.23% inc in Dem strikes, 77.75% inc in Rep strikes)

2. the uniquely concerning thing is when you show this comparison broken down by race ...

2 (cont'd). there is a massive disparity in the amount of increase in white voter strikes and black voter strikes

61.11% more white voters have been purged

135.34% (!!!) more Black voters have been purged

3. the other noticeable increase is in the amount of Hispanic voters that have been purged

303.61% more Hispanic voters have been struck from NC's voter rolls following this presidential election cycle than the last one

3 (cont'd). this increase isn't as alarming to me as the increase in Black voter strikes, primarily because the actual number of voters being purged is much smaller

however, it demonstrates that this time around, NC Boards of Elections are striking far more voters of color

at some point we can get more in the weeds on the partisan changes, but these racial disparities are quite alarming

@NCSBE is there a reason that SO many more Black and Brown voters are being purged from voter now than in 2017?