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A misleading claim that Wisconsin has more registered voters than people eligible to vote is gaining traction on social media, including in posts shared this week by President Donald Trump.
It’s just the latest in a long-running series of claims that misinterpret basic data about voter rolls to create alarm about the risk of voter fraud.
The posts circulating this week cite videos asserting that Wisconsin’s voter rolls contain more than 7 million names — far more than the state’s voting age population — and are overlaid with text reading, “This Is Not a Glitch — This Is Election Fraud Waiting To Happen.”
The videos feature Peter Bernegger, an entrepreneur who has been convicted of mail fraud and bank fraud. Bernegger has repeatedly promoted false theories about the 2020 election in Wisconsin legislative hearings and repeatedly filed unsuccessful lawsuits against election officials in search of proof for his claims.
But his claim conflates two different datasets in Wisconsin’s voter registration system: the Wisconsin voter list and active registered voters.
As of July 2025, the state had about 7.3 million names on its voter list — in line with the number Bernegger cites. But of them, only 3.7 million were active registered voters. The remaining roughly 4.6 million are inactive voters. Inactive records include people who previously registered to vote but later moved out of state, died, lost eligibility because of a felony conviction, or were ruled incompetent to vote by a court. Those individuals haven’t been removed from the voter list, but because of their inactive status, they cannot vote unless they re-register, which requires proof of residency and a photo ID.
Bernegger claims in his video that the list of voters generally grows every day, going down only once every four years, when voters who haven’t cast a ballot in four years are sent postcards asking whether they want to remain registered, and then removed from the active list if they don’t respond.
Part of that claim is true: Wisconsin never deletes voter records, so the total database of active and inactive registrations only grows. But the active voter roll, which includes only voters currently eligible to cast a ballot, can shrink.
By email, Bernegger disputed Votebeat’s characterization of his claims but provided no further proof for them.
The confusion stems from a common misunderstanding about Wisconsin’s voter system, Wisconsin Elections Commission Chair Ann Jacobs, a Democrat, told Votebeat. The pollbooks used to check voters’ eligibility on Election Day contain only active voters, while the broader voter database also retains inactive records.
The inactive records also detail why a voter was deactivated. Wisconsin state law allows for several reasons for a voter’s registration status to be changed from eligible to ineligible, but there’s no state law calling for the destruction of voter registration records, not even for a voter who has died.
And Jacobs said there’s a good reason for that: Keeping these inactive records indefinitely helps prevent fraud: If somebody tries to register using the identity of a dead voter, for example, clerks can flag that application, because the prior record — including the reason it was deactivated — is still on file.
“It’s actually pro-list-hygiene to have access to that information immediately,” she said.
Interstate databases also play a role in maintaining accurate voter rolls. One such organization, the Electronic Registration Information Center, has helped states including Wisconsin identify hundreds of thousands of voters each year who have moved across state lines, and tens of thousands of voters who died. But the system has gaps. Some Republican-led states have left the program, leaving just 25 states and Washington, D.C., participating.
Experts say voter fraud is extremely rare, but Republicans have long argued that dirty voter rolls could enable fraud and reduce confidence.
Similar misleading claims about voter rolls have circulated in other states, including Michigan, amplified by right-wing figures such as Elon Musk.
Democrats and many election officials typically support regular voter roll maintenance but warn that aggressive cleanup efforts may risk disenfranchising lawful, active voters.
Wisconsin’s own data shows how infrequently fraud occurs. In its latest report, which covers five elections, the WEC identified just 18 potential instances of fraud. One relates to a voter seeking to vote in two states. Most involved voting after a felony conviction or double-voting by casting an absentee and in-person vote in the same election.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.
