State to Give Purged Ohio Voters Another Chance to Re-Register to Vote

New Secretary of State Frank LaRose plans to address Ohio’s controversial voter purge by sending out registration forms to those who were removed from voting rolls in January after not responding to “last chance” notices from previous Secretary of State and current Lieutenant Governor John Husted.

A spokesperson told cleveland.com that an estimated 26,700 people of the 275,000 Husted contacted were removed from the registry.

LaRose’s office is currently taking steps to acquire up-to-date addresses of those affected from county boards of elections. LaRose also took to Twitter on Monday to discuss the move.

It’s not the comprehensive update we’ll be pushing for our antiquated system, but it’s a positive step that we can and are making NOW. https://t.co/iDNmAMjVWU
— Frank LaRose (@FrankLaRose) February 11, 2019

Critics view the state’s decision to remove people from the rolls after essentially not voting for four years as an act of voter suppression, but officials claim the move was made to keep the records up-to-date.

This article appears in Feb 6-12, 2019.