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Colorado's secretary of state has reached an agreement to allow some 20,000 voters recently purged from the state's voter registration database to still cast ballots.

Secretary of State Mike Coffman was sued by Common Cause of Colorado and two other groups who claimed the state violated the National Voter Registration Act by illegally purging the voters from its registration list within 90 days of the general election.

The NVRA prohibits states from purging an already-registered voter from a list during that timeframe unless a voter has died or been declared unfit to vote or notifies officials that he has moved out of state.

Aside from those categories, and outside of the 90-day-timeframe, election officials must notify voters before they remove them from the voter list. Voters whose names are matched to death or convicted felon lists can be removed without notice. But voters who are suspected of having moved must be sent a notification that they may be dropped from the list. Even then, a state cannot purge the voter from the list until the voter fails to vote in two consecutive federal elections.

Coffman maintained that he followed the law for purging the names of convicted felons and people who died, moved, or had duplicate records on the list.

But Linda Townsend Johnson and her husband, James Edward Johnson, testified at a hearing that they were removed erroneously within the 90-day period. After moving to Colorado in May and registering to vote, they had received confirmation of their registration as well as absentee ballots in the mail. But the state removed them from the voter list after two people signed voter registration applications in their names in September, using a different address.

When the county clerk's office sent mail to the address registered by the two people in September, it was returned. Officials then removed the Johnsons from the voter roll, in violation of the NVRA.

Many other voters who were removed from the list will likely not find out until they arrive to the polls. They will, however, still be allowed to vote under the new agreement.

The state reached the agreement with the plaintiffs just before a judge was set to rule on the case, which was seeking a preliminary injunction that would reinstate the purged voters to the list and prevent officials from purging anyone else before the election.

Under the agreement, the secretary of state will compile a complete list of every voter removed from the role since May 14 and provide it to county clerks as well as the plaintiffs' lawyers.

The purged voters will be allowed to cast a provisional ballot, which will get priority status over other provisional ballots. This means county officials will have to process the provisional ballots of these voters before they can address any other provisional ballots cast by voters not on the purge list.

According to the agreement, voters on the purge list will be presumed to be eligible and have their votes counted by default. Only if there is "a showing by clear and convincing evidence that a voter is not eligible shall a provisional ballot be rejected by the county."

Colorado isn't the only state that has purged voters in ways that may violate the NVRA. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that tens of thousands of voters in at least six swing states may be the victims of such activity.

See also:

• Voter Registration Databases Could Disenfranchise Thousands

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