I 
108TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 4250 
To amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require States 
to provide notice and an opportunity for review prior to removing any 
individual from the official list of eligible voters by reason of criminal 
conviction or mental incapacity. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 29, 2004 
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina (for himself, Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida, 
Mr. DAVIS of Florida, Mr. HASTINGS of Florida, Ms. JACKSON-LEE of 
Texas, Mr. DAVIS of Illinois, Ms. LEE, Mr. BALLANCE, Mr. CLAY, Mr. 
FORD, Mr. OWENS, Mr. PAYNE, Mr. TOWNS, Mr. WATT, Mr. WYNN, Mr. 
BERMAN, Mr. DINGELL, Mr. HINCHEY, Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania, Mr. 
CASE, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. SERRANO, Mr. SHERMAN, and Mr. HOLT) in-
troduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
House Administration 
A BILL 
To amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to 
require States to provide notice and an opportunity for 
review prior to removing any individual from the official 
list of eligible voters by reason of criminal conviction 
or mental incapacity. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Protect American Vot-
ers Act of 2004’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress makes the following findings: 
(1) Prior to the 2000 Presidential election, 
which was decided by only 547 votes in Florida, sev-
eral Florida counties purged their voting rolls of just 
under 58,000 people who supposedly had committed 
felonies and were therefore forbidden to vote by 
Florida law. Those removed from the voting rolls re-
ceived no notification and were given no chance to 
appeal the decision. 
(2) After the election, it was learned that thou-
sands of Floridians had been mistakenly included on 
the list of convicted felons used to purge the voter 
rolls and were incorrectly denied their right to vote. 
(3) Purging voting rolls of felons can be a dif-
ficult and confusing process for State election offi-
cials. Many States do not keep comprehensive data 
sets of convicted felons. Furthermore, there have 
been numerous documented instances in which 
States have incorrectly purged voters because their 
names were similar to convicted felons, because 
State records did not distinguish between arrests 
and convictions, or due to simple clerical errors.
(4) The risk that innocent Americans may be 
mistakenly denied their Constitutional right to vote 
is still very real and places the legitimacy of future 
elections at risk. 
SEC. 3. NOTICE AND REVIEW REQUIREMENTS FOR RE-
MOVAL OF INDIVIDUALS FROM OFFICIAL 
LIST OF ELIGIBLE VOTERS BY REASON OF 
CRIMINAL CONVICTION OR MENTAL INCA-
PACITY. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Section 8 of the National Voter 
Registration Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 1973gg–6) is amend-
ed— 
(1) by redesignating subsection (j) as sub-
section (k); and 
(2) by inserting after subsection (i) the fol-
lowing new subsection: 
‘‘(j) NOTICE AND REVIEW REQUIREMENTS FOR RE-
MOVAL OF INDIVIDUALS FROM LIST OF ELIGIBLE VOT-
ERS BY REASON OF CRIMINAL CONVICTION OR MENTAL 
INCAPACITY.— 
‘‘(1) MINIMUM NOTICE PRIOR TO REMOVAL.— 
‘‘(A) IN
GENERAL.—In addition to any 
other requirements applicable under this sec-
tion, a State may not remove a registrant from 
the official list of eligible voters for an election