One of the Disputes fueling the War over Ohio’s Purge Process was Resolved Thursday, with the Settlement in Years-long Litigation related to the Purge Regime.
A New Republican Secretary of State, Frank LaRose (R), who has introduced New Measures that, in theory, could help Prevent Eligible Voters from Losing their Ballot Access, is catching heat for Continuing with his Predecessor’s, John Husted (R), Purge Program. The Program begins the Process for Removal Based on a Person Sitting Out a Certain Number of Elections.
“Ohio is looking at purging about a half million from the voter rolls this year alone which is a large percentage of Ohio’s population,” Jen Miller, the Executive Director of Ohio’s League of Women Voters said.
“There are significant concerns about how the purge is being administered,” said Mike Brickner, the Ohio State Director of All Voting Is Local.
‘Use It Or Lose It’ Purging Lives On.
Under the System, if a Voter doesn’t Participate in Six Years of Elections, so even just Two Midterms and One Presidential, and if that Voter has Failed to Respond to a Mailed Notice Confirming their Registration, they are Removed from the Rolls.
But this Violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). The VRA says: A Voter who Misses the next Two Federal Elections, Fails to Return the Mailed Notice, and then Fails to Vote in the Next Two Federal Elections, Can be Deleted from the Voting Rolls. Some States Mark the Voter as, In-Active, after Not receiving the Mailed Notice.
LaRose’s Office stressed Additional Steps were taken to keep Eligible Voters on the Rolls by additional Rounds of Mailed Notices and for the First time, also instructed Counties to compile a Now-Public List of the Voters set for Removal.
The idea of a Now-Public List is that outside Groups, like the NAACP and League of Women Voters, can do One Last Round of Outreach before the Removals, while Individuals can also Search the List to see if their Registrations are in Jeopardy.
Scrutiny of that Effort has revealed Discrepancies in the County Lists. In Franklin County, Home to Columbus, 1,128 People who shouldn’t have been on the List were sent Last Chance Notices and another 123 who shouldn’t have been Purged in January were. Three other Counties, albeit much Smaller than Franklin, appeared to have some Discrepancies as well.
Brickner said that while he appreciates LaRose’s move to Publish the Purge List, it has shown “every county has a different way of doing the purge and some of them might not be accurate.”
LaRose’s Office Denied that there was any Flexibility in how Counties were going about the Purges and his Spokesperson stressed that the “Minor” Discrepancies that had been found had already been Resolved.
But the current concerns go beyond those Specific Issues. Voting Rights Groups say they Don’t have the Resources or Adequate Information about the Voters to make Contact with the 235,000 Individuals, particularly in the Month-long Time Period they had to do so before September’s Removals.
What Studying the List has shown, Brickner said, is that there are “High Number” of Soon-to-be-Purged Individuals who are Not Marked as Dead and who have Active Addresses in Ohio. “This is going to disenfranchise people who otherwise would be able to vote,” he said.
Under the Settlement, some Voters who were Removed from the Rolls this year and in Purges going back to 2011 will still be able to Cast Provisional Ballots and have those Ballots Counted. The Settlement covers Votes Cast through 2022.
Voting Rights Advocates cheered the Settlement, even as they vowed to continue their Outreach to 200,000-plus Individuals who are on the List to be Purged next Month.
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