Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose released the new Fresh Start list of 182,858 cancelled registrations for inactive voters.
The list is required by state and federal law and will be shared with organizations that were part of the Registration Reset initiative as well as posted online, the Secretary of State’s Office said. The publication will allow interested Ohioans a fresh opportunity to register to vote prior to the October 7 deadline.
The list is available here.
According to the Secretary of State’s Office, the Fresh Start List number may change because certain municipalities in Cuyahoga, Lucas and Summit counties held elections on September 10 and therefore registrations in those impacted precincts will not be acted upon by those counties yet.
Also, the list is compiled from data provided by Ohio’s county boards of elections but does not contain data from Tuscarawas or Portage counties because they have not yet provided data that adequately maintains the protections instituted by Secretary LaRose’s directive on September 6.
In June, 230,000-plus voters received “last chance” notices from Ohio informing them they were close to having their registrations canceled, Cleveland.com said. Voters who were targeted by community groups like the League of Women Voters have avoided being purged by taking action to update their registrations.
Voters’ registrations can be canceled if they don’t vote for four years, and if they also don’t vote or respond to mailed notices from elections officials over a subsequent two-year period, cleveland.com said.
A list of voting eligibility and residency requirements are here.
According to the Secretary of State, LaRose proposed legislation that has been introduced in the State Senate to place voter registration database systems under the control of a re-named Board of Voting System Examiners. He says this will reduce vulnerability to cyber-security attacks.
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Jason M. Reynolds has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist at outlets of all sizes.
Background Photo “Voting Booths” by Tim Evanson. CC BY-SA 2.0.
