Utah purges tens of thousands from voter rolls

More than 76,000 Utah voters have been dropped off the voter rolls this year in a move that Democrats in the state say smells fishy, but elections officials say is a routine housecleaning move.

"We’re tremendously concerned about it. It really is a very, very serious issue," said Utah Democratic Party Chairman Jim Dabakis.


He said if it is simply a clean-up of inactive voters, it should have been done more incrementally instead of dropping off tens of thousands in an election year.

"We’re worried there’s something more nefarious and I’m not convinced this isn’t all part of a kind of Karl Rove plot to guarantee what [Republicans] really want, which is complete domination," Dabakis said. "It should be scary to every single reasonable person in the state."

But state and county elections officials say there is no grand conspiracy at play.

"There didn’t seem to be anything unusual. It just looked like they [county clerks] were going through and cleaning up what they could and making sure it was ready for this upcoming election," said Mark Thomas, director of the state’s elections office.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/55046504-90/voter-rolls-county-utah.html.csp