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Secretary of State Moves Forward with Purge of Ohio Voter Rolls

A 'voting today' sign outside of an Ohio polling station
KAREN KASLER
/
STATEHOUSE NEWS BUREAU
A 'voting today' sign is seen outside of an Ohio polling station

Friday is the day that tens, and maybe hundreds of thousands of dead voters and duplicate registrations will be removed from the voter rolls in Ohio. But voting rights groups say they’re still worried eligible voters will be purged by mistake. 

The process removes registrations of people who, for the past six years, haven’t voted and haven’t responded to board of elections mailings. But Ohio Democratic Party chair David Pepper says there are eligible voters who’ve been mistakenly identified as inactive.

“Not one voter should be kicked off the rolls when they actually did everything they were supposed to do and somehow government somewhere made the mistake.”

The ODP sued to stop what it calls the purge, but lost in court. Secretary of State Frank LaRose says his obligation to maintain the voting rolls is very clear.

“It's not up to me whether I choose to do this or not. It's required.”

LaRose’s office says fewer than 235,000 registrations will be deleted, and promised to have a final number later.

Karen is a lifelong Ohioan who has served as news director at WCBE-FM, assignment editor/overnight anchor at WBNS-TV, and afternoon drive anchor/assignment editor in WTAM-AM in Cleveland. In addition to her daily reporting for Ohio’s public radio stations, she’s reported for NPR, the BBC, ABC Radio News and other news outlets. She hosts and produces the Statehouse News Bureau’s weekly TV show “The State of Ohio”, which airs on PBS stations statewide. She’s also a frequent guest on WOSU TV’s “Columbus on the Record”, a regular panelist on “The Sound of Ideas” on ideastream in Cleveland, appeared on the inaugural edition of “Face the State” on WBNS-TV and occasionally reports for “PBS Newshour”. She’s often called to moderate debates, including the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s Issue 3/legal marijuana debate and its pre-primary mayoral debate, and the City Club of Cleveland’s US Senate debate in 2012.