The Ongoing War Behind Ohio's Extreme Voter Purge

[Ohiogal]

Ohio may have won its Supreme Court battle to implement its extreme “use it or lose it” voter purges. But the war over the purging process rages on.

A new Republican secretary of state — 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 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 told TPM.

LWV and other voting rights group are holding a press conference Thursday calling for Secretary of State Frank LaRose to stop or delay a purge set to occur next month.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/ohio-voter-purge-use-it-or-lose-it

********** That's one of the reasons Republicans have a stranglehold on our state .... If you don't like how certain people vote, just purge 'em from the rolls ........

[guillaumeb]

1. Recommended.

The GOP recognizes that they are losing the demographic war.

Their solution is to prevent voting among certain demographics.

[Ohiogal]

2. This just infuriates me!

So what if you sit out a couple of elections? That should make no difference whatsoever. If you're still living in Ohio and still a registered voter, it shouldn't matter one bit. Of course that's the only way Repukes win, they cheat or suppress votes.

[TEB]

3. Thank You for posting

Great article

[yellowdogintexas]

4. Texas does a lot of idiotic stuff but you can not vote

for years and not lose your voting status unless your voter registration card is returned as undeliverable two cycles in a row.

We get them in January of even years and they are good for 2 years. If you move and your card is returned to Elections, your registration is marked "suspended". If you come in and vote, you will be given an address change form that the ELection Judge will send back to the central office.

If it is early voting or a county with voting centers, you can go ahead and vote right then. If your county does not have voting centers, and it is Election Day you will be sent to your correct precinct location to vote.

IF your voter card comes back undeliverable twice your name will be purged on the assumption that you no longer live in the county. People think that if they change their driver's license info that their voter card is also updated; in some counties this system does not work so well. (I suspect some of that is deliberate)

SO the answer is to vote every election. You will be told you are in suspense and can then change your address.

On the other hand, if you leave the county or pass away and your voter cards are never returned to Elections, you can stay on the voter rolls forever. My daughter has lived and voted in Arizona for 12 years and she is still on the precinct list because I just tossed her cards instead of returning them to ELections!!! Now I know better.

[fescuerescue]

5. How many elections do you have to miss?

I lived in Ohio until about 15 years ago. I'm wondering if I'm still registered there.

[Blue_true]

7. The state that you live in now should have sent Ohio notice that you registered to vote in it.

Some states send voters annual surveys that can be sent back informing the state of a new residence.

[fescuerescue]

8. Thanks

That's interesting. I didn't know that they coordinated on that.

[Blue_true]

6. People who are not voting ARE a big part of the problem.

Hillary would most likely be our President now if more people had voted, Trump's vote was maxed out in that election, her vote was far from maxed out.

People that don't vote are saying that they don't care one way or the other, so republicans push them off the voting roles in the hope that they don't care enough to register again. One better bet that if the inactive voter role was dominated by republican voters, NOTHING would be happening but the SOS sending out mailers begging people to vote.

[fescuerescue]

9. That's always true and it's true for both parties

It's a big myth that people change their party. It's done rarely and usually only done once in a lifetime. The exception is maybe the middle 5% who swing back and forth, but for 95% of us, we vote party lines nomatter who is nominated.

But what does change, best on the strength of candidates is turnout. Candidates aren't REALLY trying to change anyones mind. They are just trying to get that extra 3% to 8% excited enough to turn up for them.

As for 2016, voter turnout was 56%. that was millions and millions of votes left on the table for Hillary and Trump (no matter how we slice that unclaimed 44%). (both barely got half to turn up for them)

[Blue_true]

10. I doubt that Trump left a lot of votes on the table.

Hillary certainly did in states like Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan. Places like Miami-Dade, Jacksonville Florida, Philadephia, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Detroit/Wayne County greatly underperformed for Hillary, while the red leaning rural vote over-performed. So you claim that both candidates left millions of votes on the table is only partially right, Hillary left votes on the table that if only 10% of them had shown up, she would be our President now, I can't say that about Trump's vote, by contrary, his vote seemed maxed out.

[fescuerescue]

11. No candidate ever gets 100% turnout.

Jesus could return, get the Republican nomination and 25% of his supporters would still miss voting day.

56% turnout in 2016. And that's just among registered voters. If you included folks eligible, but unregistered, it's even higher.


And you are right. If either candidate got an extra 10%, then it would have been a landslide similar to 1984 or 1972.

If Hillary had gotten an extra 10%, should would have won cleaned up the map should we have won all but 10 states.