Thousands of inactive Ohio voters were quietly purged from the state’s voter rolls last month at the direction of Secretary of State Frank LaRose after some voters had already begun casting ballots in the November election.
The removal of those voter registrations, in the case of many Ohio counties, went ahead on Sept. 28, a week after military and overseas voting had started for the Nov. 7 general election, which features high-profile statewide votes on abortion rights and marijuana.
LaRose maintains that he issued the directive because he’s required by federal and state election law to set rules and timelines for maintaining accurate voter registration lists. But a Democratic state lawmaker called LaRose’s action a “bad decision” and asked why he didn’t delay it until after the general election, as he did earlier ahead of the August special election on a proposed constitutional amendment to make it harder to pass future amendments.
The Ohio secretary of state’s office orders county election officials on a regular basis – every year, for the past several years – to remove voters who haven’t cast ballots or responded to mailed notices from elections officials over a six-year period.
Ohio has been the most aggressive state in the nation when it comes to purging inactive voters. LaRose, a Columbus Republican running for U.S. Senate next year, says such purges are needed to prevent election fraud and that voters get plenty of chances to remain on the rolls. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Ohio’s purge policies in 2018.
Democrats, though, have blasted the process, saying it disproportionately affects liberal-leaning groups of voters, such as students, low-income people, and minorities.
Since becoming secretary of state in 2019, LaRose has publicized such purges before they happen, allowing voting-rights groups to try to contact voters at risk of seeing their registrations canceled. But no such notice was sent this time, according to Jen Miller of the League of Women Voters of Ohio.
State Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney, a Westlake Democrat, wrote LaRose on Friday asking him to clarify his decision to order the purge, asserting that it came amid staff turnover at the secretary of state’s office and with elections officials preparing for the Nov. 7 general election.
“This is a stunning order buried in a confusing directive on your website,” Sweeney wrote, adding that the secretary of state’s website mentions nothing about such a purge.
Sweeney asked LaRose to provide answers to a number of questions about the purge, including whether it actually took place, and – if so – when it happened and which voters were removed. If the purge did happen, she asked LaRose to undo it and wait until after Nov. 7, when Ohioans will vote on measures to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and to pass a law legalizing recreational marijuana.
In a written response Tuesday, LaRose suggested that Sweeney’s letter was “exaggerated, politically motivated, and often misguided criticism.”
LaRose stated he is required by federal and state election law to set rules and timelines for maintaining accurate voter registration lists. He wrote that it’s “inaccurate” to call his directive a “voter purge,” as “registrations that are demonstrably no longer active at a particular address …by definition are not legally defined as a voter at that location.”
LaRose wrote that the list of voter registrations being removed “was completed only this week as we awaited final data from the counties.” He did not explain why he didn’t push back the deadline until after the Nov. 7 general election, as he did ahead of the August special election; Cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer has reached out to LaRose’s office asking for such information.
His letter also did not explain how many voter registrations were removed from the rolls in the latest wave. In prior purges, including one as recent as February, elections officials have canceled hundreds of thousands of voter registrations. Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer has asked for the information.
The Franklin County Board of Elections removed 4,694 voters from the rolls in late September in response to LaRose’s directive, said board spokesman Aaron Sellers.
However, so far the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has not removed any voters from voter rolls so far, as LaRose’s directive states that any counties that held a primary or charter election within 30 days of the Sept. 28 deadline would have their purge deadline rescheduled, stated Hasani Wheat, manager of the board’s registration department, in an email. Cuyahoga County had two primaries on Sept. 12 in Garfield Heights and Maple Heights, he stated.
As of Tuesday, Wheat stated that his office had not yet received an alternate timeline from LaRose’s office about when inactive or ineligible county voters would need to be removed.
___
© 2023 Advance Local Media LLC
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
