OKLAHOMA CITY – Authorities say thousands of voters were removed from the State Election Board’s rolls after they were deemed inactive or duplicates.

On Monday, the State Election Board completed its voter list maintenance, which is required by law every two years.

“Oklahoma’s voter list maintenance process is nothing new. The current process is required by a 25-year-old law and has been conducted in essentially the same manner since the mid-1990’s,” State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax said. “Maintaining clean and updated voter rolls isn’t just required by law, it also protects our democracy by making it far more difficult for someone to use outdated voter lists to attempt to commit fraud or disrupt our elections.”

As a result of the process, 3,030 duplicate voter registrations were removed. Also, 88,276 inactive voter registrations were removed from the state’s voter rolls.

Duplicate registrations that were deleted matched newer registrations by the same person at a new address.

Inactive registrations were voters who failed to confirm their address in 2015 and then had no voter activity through the 2018 General Election.

Officials say they sent address confirmation notices to voters in 2015 who surrendered an Oklahoma driver’s license in another state, had a mailing returned as ‘undeliverable,’ or who had no voter activity from the 2012 General Election through the 2014 General Election.

“The fact is this is not a new process, it is not partisan, and no Oklahoma voter is ever removed simply for failing to vote,” he said.

In addition to the biennial voter list maintenance of inactive and duplicate voter registrations, county election boards continually update the voter rolls by removing voters who are deceased, have registered in another state or county, or who are convicted of a felony.

For more information, visit the State Election Board’s website.