As of September 6, as many as 200,000 Ohio voter registrations may have been removed from the rolls by county boards of elections. But a final total won’t be available till the end of this week, after they report the numbers they deleted to the state.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose stresses most of those removed are deceased voters or duplicate registrations. Voting rights groups tried to stop the process because they feared thousands of eligible voters would be removed by mistake, and LaRose admits there are flaws in the system.
“What we saw with this process was some error, some vendor error that is unacceptable,” LaRose said.
LaRose ordered some exemptions– for instance, counties couldn’t delete voters who’ve moved within the county or who are still listed as active in the state’s database. And he says of the original list of 235,000 targeted for removal, 12,500 voters are now active after responding to last-chance mailings or contact with voting rights groups.
