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Ohio Secretary Of State May Review Past Lists Of Purged Voters

Secretary of State Frank LaRose (right) flanked by Franklin County Board of Elections Director Edward Leonard.
Nick Evans
/
WOSU
Secretary of State Frank LaRose (right) flanked by Franklin County Board of Elections Director Edward Leonard.

Ohio’s Secretary of State says he will release the list of registrations removed from voting rolls this month to various voter groups so they can re-register people by the October 7 deadline. After that, Frank LaRose says he might check past voter removal lists for errors. 

Voting rights groups have been asking LaRose to review past lists of removed voters to see if some were taken off the rolls by mistake. He says he’s focused on the list of voters removed during the recent “purge” on September 6.

But he’s not ruling out looking back at lists of voters removed before he took office in January.

“It’s entirely possible that the same problems that we found have occurred in the past and have gone unnoticed,” LaRose says. “It’s entirely possible. The law of averages tells you that.”

Voter rights groups have raised questions about the accuracyof these lists. Some mistakes were discovered after LaRose gave the lists to about two dozen community groups this summer.

The groups tried to locate some of the voters on the lists to get them to make their registrations current, succeeding with about 12,000. LaRose says his office has been working with countiesto make sure those problems are corrected.

LaRose is pushing for a bill that will allow a non-partisan board to certify the voter registration process. He's also advocating for automatic updates to voter registrations when Ohioans renew their drivers' licenses.

Larose says the current system that involves four vendors in 88 counties lacks uniformity.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment.