Ohio has purged thousands of voters — watchdog says it has the worst safeguards

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has purged hundreds of thousands of voters from the rolls, saying doing so is important to protect “election integrity.” But a watchdog has found that while LaRose professes to protect election integrity, Ohio has poor safeguards against removing eligible voters from the rolls. A study of 10 states published late last year found that Ohio had the worst removal practices when it did voter purges, and that it was among the worst in terms of purging eligible voters. It singled out Ohio’s voter purges for special attention, saying “at nearly every turn, the state makes it hard for voters to stay on the registration rolls, and the totality of Ohio’s removal practices — from purging for inactivity to lack of notice to voters removed for alleged felony conviction or adjudication of mental incapacity, to a lack of process for voters to contest their removal, to expansive permissions to challenge a voter’s eligibility — make it likely that eligible voters will be improperly purged.” LaRose’s office didn’t respond to questions for this story. “Voter purges occur when election officials engage in practices like Ohio does that essentially result in the removal of otherwise qualified voters from the state voter rolls,” she said. A main way Ohio and a minority of other states do that is through “use it or lose it” practices that the American Bar Association in 2020 said “ought to be seen as glaringly unconstitutional — purging people from the rolls solely because they have skipped voting in several consecutive elections and they have not responded to a letter asking them to confirm where they live.” As Druks explained, there’s nothing in the law or the U.S. Constitution requiring people to vote to maintain their eligibility.