Update on the Ohio Voter Purge

More Questions Emerging on Dawn of Monday's Purge of 150K+

A few months back, I shared this tweet from Frank LaRose, where he announced a new round of Ohio purging—almost 160,000 registrations are set to be purged—while attacking pro-voter groups (who’ve caught past purging mistakes at an alarming rate) for “irresponsible” hyperbole:

LaRose followed that tweet up with this one, bragging how much more accurate his purging process is now than before (which is a really odd thing to brag about when Ohio has purged more than 2 million people over the past decade+, with what looks to be a very high error rate).

I mean, this story was in The New York Times just a few years ago, highlighting how bad the process was. More accurate than a 20% error rate is nothing to brag about.

Either way, LaRose told us, the process has been fixed.

But with the purge scheduled for Monday, whether it’s been fixed is not at all clear.

Several issues have been flagged in recent days:

A Federal Law Violation?

Yesterday, the Brennan Center sent a letter to LaRose warning him that it looks as if the purging process is eliminating registrations from the rolls in a way that violates federal law.

A number of registrations are being removed due to something LaRose’s office calls a Bureau of Motor Vehicles “mismatch.” As one Secretary of State directive explains—“certain information in the voter’s records did not match BMV/SSA (Social Security Administration) records.” (“Certain”? That’s a troublingly vague reason to be “cancelled,” if you ask me.)

And in explaining why these “mismatch” registrations were being removed from the rolls (in a communication responding to State Rep. Elliot Forhan, who inquired about this issue as well as the issues below), the Secretary of State’s office wrote the following:

“so-called BMV mismatches” scheduled for removal pursuant to Directive 2024-06 ‘typically occur when a voter moves to a new address and updates a driver’s license while neglecting to cancel a voter registration at the old address.’”

But as the Brennan Center pointed out in its letter, federal law “requires states—not voters—to automatically update a voter’s registration record when they report a change of address to the BMV…”

“Your statement that these voters slated for removal updated their address on their driver’s license but “neglect[ed] to cancel a voter registration at the old address” suggests that your office, county boards, and the BMV are not complying with Section 5’s procedures for automatically updating voters’ registration addresses when they provide an updated address to the BMV.”

As the Brennan Center wrote: “To the extent that any such voters were in fact placed in the removal process, their removal on the ground that they failed to cancel their registration at their old address would violate the NVRA.”

This of course opens a whole host of questions by way of the Secretary of State’s own description of the process.

Questions like:

• what information falls within the “certain” information that doesn’t “match” (between the BMV and the voter record) that triggers the cancellation of the registration?

• is the “mismatch” itself caused by the fact that the state is not automatically updating voting records as federal law requires it to?

• how many registrations are slated to be removed (and have been removed in the past) due to “BMV mismatch”?

The Brennan Center requested information and assurances that federal law is being followed. Let’s see what response they get.

Purging Voters Who Moved Within a County?

Across Ohio, voters are removed from the rolls because they have moved elsewhere in the state, or out of state entirely, and they registered that move through what is called the National Change of Address (NCOA) form.

But a number of voters from Cuyahoga County filled out the NCOA form indicating that they were moving from one part of Cuyahoga County to another address within the County.

One woman moved from Cleveland to Parma, for example. Another moved from North Olmstead to Berea. A number moved from one street in Cleveland to another.

742 voters are listed in such a fashion.

And just like those who moved out of state, they too are slated to be purged because of that change of address WITHIN the same county. (Under the “reason” given for the purge, the form indicates “NCOA”).

And that also looks be a violation of the state’s own purging policy.

The relevant Ohio Secretary of State’s Directive is clear that moving within a county, and declaring that on an NCOA form, should not lead to purging. Rather, “the board must first change the voter’s address to the address reported on the 2020 NCOA list.” In addition, the “board must place or keep the elector in “active-active” status.”

The Boards are required to send a “confirmation notice” to voters at the new address on the NCOA form, and that confirmation notice gives voters the opportunity to confirm or deny that this is their new voting address. (The voters on the Cuyahoga list look like they were sent those confirmation notices). But “even if the elector does not respond to the in-county confirmation notice, their status will remain “active-active.””

So given those clear rules, why are the 742 such “in-county NCOA” voters list slated to be purged? Are they being purged in violation of the state’s own clear directive? Or was it due to a different reason and improperly classified? And is this happening in other counties as well?

Rushing a Purge?

Finally, the Brennan Center also identified voters who look like they are being removed before the required time had elapsed in the purging process: “Our review of a subset of voters in Cuyahoga County scheduled for removal indicates that some of those voters were mailed a confirmation notice in 2021, 2022, or 2024. For example, it appears Jim Allen, Shyeanne Jones, Sandra Maalouf, Nataia Ogletree, and Darrell Payton were mailed a confirmation notice last month. Thus, not enough time has passed under the NVRA (i.e., two federal general elections after the mailing of the confirmation notice) to remove those voters from the rolls.”

As the Brennan Center requests: “If voters who were mailed a confirmation notice after 2020 are being removed for some other reason besides their failure to respond to that notice, we ask that you please clarify and indicate the reason.”

Need Answers

Currently, the purge of close to 160,000 voters is scheduled to take place Monday.

Perhaps the issues I’ve listed above are more about inaccurate record-keeping and sloppy explanations.

Either way, it doesn't leave me reassured. I will keep you posted on answers to these important questions, and if these problems are being corrected.

Needless to say, the purge should not move forward with these problematic issues hanging out there. Last time questions like this came up, LaRose moved forward, and voters were improperly purged.

One other thing—besides being frustrated, there is something that YOU can do.

Please be sure to verify and/or update your registration HERE. And be sure others you know do the same.