So you missed the past couple of elections. Now you’re off the voter rolls. What to do?
We asked the Clayton County Elections and Registration Office. According to Registrar Manager Scott Brown, over the next couple of weeks, the county Elections and Registration Office will be sending out two different kinds of notices to voters.
No Contact Notice
If you are a voter in “Active” status, but you haven’t voted in the last five years or have not contacted the Clayton County Office of Elections and Registration in the last five years, you will get a “No Contact Notice” in the mail.
You will have 30 days to respond to the notice. If you don’t respond, then you will be placed in “Inactive” status.
“Inactive voters are still eligible to vote,” Brown explained. “Voting or making contact with our office will move the voter back to an ‘Active’ status.
NGE Notices
If you have been in “Inactive” status for two or more general election cycles, and if you have neither voted nor contacted the county Elections and Registration Office, you will get an “NGE Notice” in the mail.
You will have 30 days to respond to the NGE Notice. If you do not respond, then your voter registration will be cancelled.
However, according to Brown, “If the voter’s registration is cancelled the voter can re-register at any time. The deadline to register to vote for the November [7] election is October 10, 2023.”
Not sure of your voter status?
If you don’t know what your voter status is, visit the Georgia Secretary of State’s My Voter Page at mvp.sos.ga.gov.
Are you on the inactive list?
Every two years, the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office publishes a list of inactive voters. As of July 17, in Clayton County, 4,706 voters have been listed by the state as inactive. As of June 1, Clayton County reported a total of 211,253 registered voters, of which 184,936 were active and 26,317 were inactive.
That means 17.88% of the county’s inactive voters were dropped from the rolls by the state Elections Office. Overall, Clayton County lost 2.2% of its registered voters.
“Inactive status” means that you have not “had contact with elections officials” in five years.
Once you are inactive, if you miss two general elections and do not contact elections officials—for example, to update your new address if you’ve moved—you will get a notice that you have 30 days to fix the problem.
To return to “Active” voter status, you can do one of four things:
- Vote
- Request an absentee ballot
- Sign a petition
- Update your address
DATA: Clayton County inactive voter list
We are providing the list of Clayton County voters deemed as inactive by the Georgia Secretary of State’s Elections Office as a public service.
You can download the full list of Georgia voters dropped from the rolls at https://sos.ga.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/NGE%20Public%20List%20as%20of%2007172023_0.zip
The list is public information. Understand the difference between public and private information:
- Your voter information—things like your name, address, voter ID number, and reason why the state listed you as an inactive voter—is public information. So is the year you were born, but not your full birth date.
- Who and what you vote for—a candidate or an issue—is not public information. The secret ballot is the cornerstone of democracy in the United States. In Georgia, voter information lists do not include your day and month of birth, Social Security number, e-mail address, driver’s license number, bank statements, or where you registered to vote. Also in Georgia, voters who live in a family violence shelter or who have a protective or restraining order may choose to keep their address confidential under state law.
You can search the list by name, address, city, inactive reason, or voter ID number.
Of those listed, 380 were dropped for NCOA (no change of address).
Individual voters should log into their My Voter Page at mvp.sos.ga.gov to check their current status and/or contact the Clayton County Elections and Registration Office at (770) 477-3372 or elections@claytoncountyga.gov for help updating your voter registration status.
In depth: More election-related dates
Here are some detailed election-related calendars from the Secretary of State’s Election Division for your reference.
2023 Scheduled Elections Abbreviated Calendar of Events
This calendar lists basic information like election and runoff dates, deadlines for requesting absentee ballots, advance voting dates, public notice deadlines, logic and accuracy (L&A) testing dates, municipal qualifying dates, election certification dates, and voter registration deadlines:
2023 Election Cycle Comprehensive Calendar
This calendar is more detailed and contains various deadlines for local and county elections managers, as well as for challenging election results, ballot information submissions, recount requests from candidates, and precinct boundary changes:
Still need help?
Consult the state Elections Office’s “Voter Resource” page for answers to basic how-to questions (like how to update your mailing address, phone number, or e-mail address) at https://sos.ga.gov/voter-resources . Don’t wait until the last minute to make changes! If you need to update your Georgia drivers’ license or free state ID card, do that right away. Last-minute ID changes before an election may invalidate your voter registration.
Call the Clayton County Elections and Registration Office at (770) 477-3372 or e-mail them at elections@claytoncountyga.gov. The office is in the rear of the Historic Courthouse in downtown Jonesboro at 121 S. McDonough Street and is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Under federal law, states must send overseas voters their absentee ballots at least 45 days before federal elections. If you fall under UOCAVA, which is the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, you can e-mail claytonuocava@claytoncountyga.gov for assistance.
If you are a U.S. citizen who is an active member of:
- the Uniformed Services
- the Merchant Marine
- the commissioned corps of the Public Health Service
- the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- an eligible family member of any of the above
- a U.S. citizen residing outside the United States
You can learn more about absentee voting while serving overseas from the Federal Voting Assistance Program’s website at https://www.fvap.gov .
Find your Installation Voter Assistance Office contact at https://www.fvap.gov/info/contact/iva-offices .
Note that government offices’ web addresses in the United States end with .gov .
Please share this information with your friends, neighbors, and civic groups, as well as with your social media channels.
