FWIW, in Somerville you don't get removed from the voting rolls if you fail to reply to the city census (for one or two years, I think). You get moved to the "inactive" pages, and if you arrive in person to vote, you show the precinct warden ID, and then you can vote (not provisional) (and you're moved back to "active" for the next election, I believe). I'm not sure how this interacts with mail-in voting, but I imagine you'd have to resolve the "inactive" status to get a mail-in ballot.
City censuses also provide useful information to cities on changes in population, and don't have a fee or require doing something in person during business hours the way many IDs do.
no subject
City censuses also provide useful information to cities on changes in population, and don't have a fee or require doing something in person during business hours the way many IDs do.
https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleVIII/Chapter51/Section4
New York probably has a different mechanism for noticing that people have moved.