Patrick Marley

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - About 21,000 Milwaukee residents who were cut from the voter rolls last year will regain their voter registration before the Nov. 6 election.

The state Elections Commission on Tuesday unanimously agreed to allow local clerks to reinstate the voter registration for thousands of people who were taken off the voter rolls last year.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said he planned to reinstate the registrations of about 21,000 people. The Milwaukee Elections Commission will work with the state agency on the issue.

"These are people who never should have been dropped from the rolls in the first place," Barrett said.

At issue is an effort the state used to try to identify people who had moved.

RELATED:State Elections Commission to send 384K postcards urging voter registration

In 2017, officials sent postcards to about 340,000 Wisconsinites who were thought to have possibly moved. The state removed people from the rolls if they did not did not hear back from them.

Election officials have determined many voters got the postcards who shouldn't have because of faulty data. They are now seeking ways to help people who didn't move get back on the voter rolls.

In Milwaukee, about 44,000 were removed from the voter rolls as part of the effort, said Neil Albrecht, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission.

The Milwaukee commission believes a little over half of them had moved and should have come off the rolls but that about 21,000 people should not have been removed, Albrecht said.

RELATED:Wisconsin setting stage to remove hundreds of thousands of names from the voting rolls

On Tuesday, the state commission voted to let local clerks make their own decisions on who to reinstate. Albrecht and the mayor said they would put the 21,000 voters back on the rolls in his community.

In another attempt to address the situation, some local election officials are printing lists of voters who were taken off the rolls because they did not respond to the postcards from the state. Clerks can check those supplemental lists at the polls if voters say they believe they should still be registered.

Voters who lose their registration status can re-register online, by mail, at their election clerk’s office or at the polls on election day. Some critics contend that's not an adequate safeguard because some people won't know they've been culled from the voter rolls until they get to the polls and won't have proof of residency with them to re-register.