Continued from page 1 number of mortgage companies (both independent and affiliated with banks) cut in half from 2006 to 2012—a drop of nearly 1,000 companies. The Brookings report warns that, if the sector contracts as it did in the financial crisis, the federal government, borrowers, and communities would likely be most affected. In the process of following through on its guarantees of the mortgages and securities that fund them, the federal government may incur losses. Although the mortgage servicing sector is in better shape than it was before the financial crisis, borrowers could still be harmed by disorderly servicing transfers when a servicer fails. Meanwhile, a reduction in nonbanks could also reduce access to credit if other financial institutions do not step in to extend mortgage credit at similar terms. If reduction in access to credit is large enough, it may affect house prices. That’s the worst case scenario for now, but it amply illustrates the need for a diversity of lenders- banks, mortgage companies, nonbanks, credit unions, and even some pension funds and insurance companies- to all be active in the mortgage business, if it is to avoid over-dependence on one type of lender and to keep our housing market strong and solid. The Biggest Mortgage Lenders By: Frank Friday, Government Affairs Executive The Contest Over The Voters Rolls By: Frank Friday, Government Affairs Executive 2 The 2019 session of the Kentucky General Assembly saw several bills advance that would change the powers of the Secretary of State with regard to election duties. This came as an out- growth of litigation over voter registra- tions, a complicated area of the law. States are to run elections and keep rosters, but federal laws, namely the so-called Motor Voter Act, put a lot of restrictions on how that must be done. Attempts to purge or clean up rolls of non-voters or ineligible persons can often result in lawsuits, but failure to do so can, as well. Last summer, the group Judicial Watch won lawsuits against several states, including Kentucky, for having more voters than residents. A consent decree was issued in July 2018 directing Kentucky to remove the names of ineligible voters no longer in residence from its official voter registra- tion lists. In accordance with the National Vot- er Registration Act (NVRA), the Ken- tucky State Board of Elections must develop and implement a general program of state- wide voter list maintenance. This ensures a reasonable effort to re- move from the statewide voter registration list the names of registrants who have become ineligible due to a change in residence, in accordance with section 8 of the NVRA. The decree instructs that the plan is to include: procedures for a general program of list maintenance; sources of information used regularly; proce- dures for sending a non-forwardable canvass mailing; procedures for using the data that is successfully matched to the statewide voter registration list; timing of notices and updates; list of registrants to whom notices have been sent; procedures for removing from the statewide voter registration list any registrant who is mailed a notice; a description of databases to be used in list maintenance activities and a plan to consult with relevant data- base manag- ers, assess the quality of data to be used in list maintenance activities, and devel- op sound and reliable matching criteria; procedures for maintaining and making available for inspection and copying the records concerning implementation of the general program activities; a detailed description of any role that local elec- tion officials may play in list mainte- nance activities, and; public outreach. Implementation of this wide-ranging decree is just beginning, and no doubt Kentucky’s county clerks will have ad- ditional duties with regard to updating the voter rolls as this process continues in the next few years.