(The Center Square) – More than 213,000 long-dormant voter registrations were removed from Michigan’s Qualified Voter File over the past year, according to a preliminary analysis released Tuesday by the Michigan Fair Elections Institute.
The report points to a 38.2% drop in “active non-voter” registrations – those showing no voting activity or address updates for six or more years – falling from 558,627 in September 2025 to 345,263 as of April 1.
“The numbers are encouraging,” said Mark Vaeth, the analyst who conducted the review using Freedom of Information Act data from the Michigan Secretary of State’s office. “They do suggest real progress is being made on the long-inactive registrations we have been tracking.”
The analysis comes as concerns over election integrity remain central in Michigan and nationally.
The registrations flagged in the report had remained listed as “active” despite years, or decades, of inactivity. According to the MFEI, some records dated back to the George W. Bush administration, including entries with no updates for more than 15 years.
In a sample of 384 long-inactive registrants, 139 showed no activity since 2009 or earlier. Of those, 122 (or 87.8%) are now coded as challenged, pending or removed. Based on that rate, the report estimates roughly 187,000 pre-2010 registrations have been cleared statewide.
MFEI founder and chairperson Patrice Johnson told The Center Square in an exclusive interview that the analysis was prompted by a lack of independent data on the condition of the state’s voter rolls.
“The short answer is that nobody else was doing it,” Johnson said. “If the state won’t produce rigorous, independent data on the condition of the voter rolls, we will.”
The report highlighted the need for ongoing list maintenance. While 213,364 registrations were removed, 50,738 new registrants entered the monitored inactive pool during the same period, bringing the total to 396,001.
“The structural problem that allowed this backlog to accumulate in the first place is still embedded in Michigan’s administrative rules,” Johnson explained. “Cleaner rolls today do not guarantee cleaner rolls tomorrow without permanent audit authority.”
A full audit of the voter rolls is not expected until 2027.
State Rep. Rachelle Smit, R-Shelbyville, applauded the MFEI but said the state needs to take on more responsibility.
“No citizen organizations should have to submit FOIA requests, analyze half a million registrations, and run a legislative correspondence campaign to get the state to do what federal law already requires,” Smit said. “That is what MFEI and PIME did – and the 38.2% reduction in ghost registrations is proof it mattered.”
Despite the reduction, 345,263 registrations from the originally flagged group remain active. Johnson said the removals represent progress ahead of the 2026 election cycle but do not resolve underlying issues.
“Accurate voter rolls are the foundation of election integrity. Every ineligible registration that remains on the file is a potential vector for error or manipulation—an absentee ballot that can be requested, a name that can be checked in at the polls,” she said. “Removing 213,000 long-inactive registrations, particularly the pre-2010 records that had survived 15 years of election cycles untouched, meaningfully reduces that risk heading into November 2026. But I want to be precise: this is progress, not completion.”
