Some Democrats are worried some Ohio voters who think they are registered to vote might go to the polls this fall, only to find they are no longer registered. There is now an effort to make sure voters who have recently been removed from the polls know it and can re-register prior to the November election.
The leader of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus says there was a voter registration party at an event the organization held this weekend. And Rep. Alicia Reece says those who attended were able to check to see if their own voter registrations were still valid and says volunteers were trained how to help other voters do the same. She says churches will be helping out with that effort between now and Election Day in November.
“Churches will be registering voters and also checking if voters have been purged because unfortunately in Ohio, we have about two million people who have been purged and probably don’t know that they have,” she said.
Secretary of State Jon Husted says voters who have been removed from the rolls were duplicate registrations, inactive voters who hadn’t cast a ballot in years or were deceased. Still, some Democrats worry there are voters who should be able to vote who have been scratched from the rolls. Democratic Rep. Kathleen Clyde is calling on Husted to give her the full list of purged voters.
“We want the names and information so that we can really understand the full scope of this problem and also you know, perhaps, begin making sure they are reached out to and re-registered to vote and are able to vote this coming November,” she said.
A spokesman for Husted, Joshua Eck, says Ohio is maintaining its voter rolls in a manner that is both legal and in the best interest of election integrity. In a written statement, he says no training is necessary to help people learn if they are registered to vote. Eck says every Ohioan can go to MyOhioVote.com and check their registration and download a registration form if they need one. And Eck says the Secretary of State’s office will be reaching out to eligible, unregistered voters to encourage them to get registered by the end of the summer.
