The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) addresses the removal of
ineligible voters from state voting rolls, 52 U. S. C. §20501(b), including
those who are ineligible “by reason of” a change in residence,
§20507(a)(4).
The Act prescribes requirements that a State must
meet in order to remove a name on change-of-residence grounds,
§§20507(b), (c), (d). The most relevant of these are found in subsection
(d), which provides that a State may not remove a name on
change-of-residence grounds unless the registrant either (A) confirms
in writing that he or she has moved or (B) fails to return a preaddressed,
postage prepaid “return card” containing statutorily prescribed
content and then fails to vote in any election during the period
covering the next two general federal elections.
In addition to these specific change-of-residence requirements, the
NVRA also contains a general “Failure-to-Vote Clause,” §20507(b)(2),
consisting of two parts. It first provides that a state removal program
“shall not result in the removal of the name of any person
. . . by reason of the person’s failure to vote.” Second, as added by
the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), it specifies that “nothing
in [this prohibition] may be construed to prohibit a State from using
the procedures” described above—sending a return card and removing
registrants who fail to return the card and fail to vote for the requisite
time . . . .
Read the entire opinion here.