Are registered Democrats being "purged" in Florida?

Prominent Democrats have taken to Twitter claiming that they are victims of a targeted purge, but does data support their claim?

Over the last couple of months, Florida Democrats have claimed that they are victim to Republican purging of voters due to the enactment of Senate Bill 7050. However, the numbers don’t seem to support their skepticism.

According to the current law, voters can be removed from the voter file if their address cannot be confirmed, as well as become an inactive voter if they haven’t voted in the last two general elections. However, any simple action like asking for a mail-in ballot could move someone back to being an active voter.

In 2020, nearly 1.3 million Democrats did not vote in the general election, with nearly 2.4 million not voting in 2022. While it is true that voters who didn’t vote in 2020 could have voted in 2022, it’s likely that many voters didn’t vote in either. Still, between the 2020 general election book closing and December of 2023, Democrats lost 609,297 voters. If we look at the fact that this number is significantly less than the 1.3 million who didn’t vote in 2020, this easily falls within the reasonable expectations of voters being removed. Furthermore, since new voters are less likely to register as a Democrat, this deficit seems to make sense. Had Democrats actually turned out their voters, they would have more voters. It’s not rocket surgery.

As for Republicans, a little over 900 thousand didn’t vote. In the same period that was mentioned above, Republicans have lost 135,546 voters. Yes, that is significantly less than Democrats, but Republicans have been able to replenish inactive voters with newly-registered voters, something that Democrats haven’t been able to do.

As for No Party Affiliated voters, a little over 1.3 million voters did not vote in 2020. Again, with the time period mentioned above, NPAs have lost 464,178 voters. However, that number is still less than the Democrats. But as with the Republicans, more voters are likely to register as an NPA voter than as a Democrat. Since more people are registering NPA now, this is the only thing that makes the Republican numbers suspiciously low.

In the end, the voter numbers don’t really look totally suspicious at all, with maybe that low GOP number being a little iffy. The way that Florida Democrats can actually make this an issue is by finding voters who have been active, have been at the same address, and show that they have been purged from the voter roll. Considering Florida Democrats have the voter file (and should have all of the monthly updates kept in storage somewhere), it should be easy to prove. But until then, all of this is speculation with the numbers not proving their point.