Why does federal law promote bloat in voter lists? How can that ever be fixed?
OCT 28, 2025
A recent Kansas voter file with nearly 2 million voters showed 1,868,601 “active” voters (93.5%) and 129,454 “inactive” voters (6.5%).
Many might show concern about “inactive” voters if labelled “unknown address” voters or “invalid address” voters. Why should anyone be allowed to vote with an unknown or invalid address? There are inadequate checks and balances in place when “inactive” voters show up to vote.
In addition to the legally “inactive” voters, there are people on the voter list that are truly “inactive” having not voted in many years or decades — the long-time “disengaged.”
New Kansas Law
A new state law from 2022, KSA 25-2136c(e)(5), aimed at identifying “disengaged” voters, but it’s not working.
The new law should have allowed marking many thousands as “inactive” in 2025 since the registrants had no election-related activity for the four years, 2021 – 2024.
Open records suggest this new “e5” law would tag over 383,000 voters as “inactive” after the Nov. 2024 election. The reality is only 76,000 have been tagged.
No open records are available that show why so many disengaged are still active voters. Election officials insist they are following all federal and state laws.
Once marked “inactive” voters will still stay on the rolls for 2-3 years, or more, before removal. Those never marked inactive can stay on the rolls for decades!
Election integrity should be challenged based on the huge intentional voter bloat alone, which is caused by federal law.
Disengaged Registrants and Voters
Flow chart
“Disengaged” can describe people who register to vote and then never vote — for years or decades. The left-side path below shows disengaged registrants, Kansans who register and have never voted.
“Disengaged” can describe voters who voted one or more times and then quit voting — years or decades ago. The right-side path below shows disengaged voters, Kansans who have voted but then quit voting.
The chart above shows 132,964 disengaged registrants and 249,689 disengaged voters. Overall, Kansas voter rolls in Sept. had 382,653 disengaged that seemingly could be tagged as “inactive” based on the new “e5” law. But that didn’t happen.
“Disengaged” is a bit misleading. Many (possibly most?) of the “disengaged” are just like inactive voters – people with unknown or invalid addresses.
Numbers by year
Let’s add some detail to the above process. Let’s look at “disengaged” by year registered for those never voting, and by last year voted for those voting.
Examples:
- The left table above shows 5382 registrants from 2010 have never voted yet only 1043 were tagged inactive. Why not all 5382?
- The right table above shows 86 voters in the 1980, 1984, 1986 and 1988 elections have never voted since, but only 8 have been tagged inactive. Why not all 86?
The new “e5” law was thwarted from being effective, but the reasons are not available in open records. Why?
Inactive and disengaged?
There is overlapping accounting of inactive and disengaged above, which can be eliminated in an “upset” plot.
The chart above shows 436,148 inactive or disengaged voters in Kansas:
- 200,487 disengaged voters from 2020 or before,
- 106,207 disengaged registrants from 2020 or before,
- 53,495 current “inactive” voters,
- 49,202 voters who are both “disengaged” and “inactive,”
- 26,757 registrants (never voted) who are “disengaged” and “inactive.”
Wyoming Law
The disengaged voter table above shows 1,303,634 voted in the 2024 general election based on voter history in the voter file.
A new 2022 law in Wyoming allows quick removal from the voter rolls for not voting in a single federal general election. After missing an election, Wyoming sends confirmation messages before removal allowing some missing the election to stay on the rolls.
In round numbers, with 2 million Kansas voters, and only 1.3 million voting in 2024, perhaps 700,000 registered Kansas voters might be eligible for removal under Wyoming law — which only applies to Wyoming.
Let’s say 200,000 of the 700,000 might return a mailing after the election asking to be retained on the list. That means about 500,000 Kansas voters could be removed if we followed Wyoming Law — voter bloat would be gone.
Wyoming can quickly remove those not voting in a single federal election because it is
- one of six states exempt from the National Voter Registration Act, and
- Wyoming allows same-day voter registration.
Kansas legislators must pick a poison:
- very bloated voter registration files, or
- same-day registration.
Which is worse?
Congress should protect our elections by not enabling such huge bloat in voter files in the current NVRA. But when will Congress get serious about bloated voter files and election integrity?
County Maps
The rates of “inactive” and “disengaged” voters vary considerable by county, which is shown in the maps below.
Inactive Voters
Highest 10 Counties [%]: Stevens (18.49), Ford (17.59), Doniphan (16.93), Osage (14.46), Rice (13.81), Allen (12.93), Montgomery (12.71), Atchison (11.48) Labette (11.21), Bourbon (10.69).
Lowest 10 Counties [%]: Barber (0.11), Wilson (0.14), Hamilton (0.45), Comanche (0.63), Clark (0.730, Logan (0.85), Stanton (0.88), Ellsworth (1.04), Jackson (1.29), Geary (1.54).
Inactive rates can also vary considerably by precincts within counties.
For example, “top 5” Kansas precincts based on inactive rates (> 100 voters):
- Sedgwick GY04 (57.84%)
- Reno Hutchinson 21 (45.96%)
- Leavenworth Ft. Leav (37.67%)
- Douglas Lawrence 10 (37.12%)
- Sedgwick GY02 (34.77%)
Disengaged Registrants
What might explain the higher rates of disengaged registrants and voters in the southwest and southeast parts of the state?
Top 5 Counties [%]: Seward (20.81), Bourbon (20.47), Ford (15.32), Finney (15.09), Meade (12.98).
Disengaged Voters
Top 5 Counties [%]: Meade (24.11), Morton (23.64), Stevens (21.49), Scott (21.07), Seward (19.96).
Reference
Kansas voter registration by party and ageEARL F GLYNN·SEP 9Read full story
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