Court Declares Ohio’s Voter Purge Unconstitutional

The US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against Ohio over the state’s practice of removing inactive voters’ names from voter rolls. The ruling, handed down on September 23, comes weeks before a presidential election that will see Ohio as a key battleground.

“We don’t believe that any voters should be removed from the rolls simply because they haven’t voted in a few elections,” Mike Brickner, senior policy director at the ACLU’s Ohio chapter, wrote in a statement, reports ABC News. “We hope that a plan will emerge soon to allow the tens of thousands of voters illegally purged from the rolls to vote in the upcoming presidential election.”

Ohio’s contested protocol removed the names of voters who had not voted in six years.

According to the court, in Ohio’s “Supplemental Process”, “a voter is purged from the rolls after six years of inactivity — even if he or she did not move and otherwise remains eligible to vote”. The court added that this is in violation of the National Voter Registration Act, notes CNN.

“This ruling overturns 20 years of Ohio law and practice, which has been carried out by the last four secretaries of state, both Democrat and Republican,” Jon Husted, a Republican and the Ohio secretary of state, wrote in a statement, reports ABC News. “It is one thing to strike down a longstanding procedure; it is another to craft a workable remedy. To that end, if the final resolution requires us to reinstate voting eligibility to individuals who have died or moved out of Ohio, we will appeal.”

The appeals court has charged a lower court with finding a “remedy” to the issue, notes CNN.

The Atlantic reports that Husted stated, “[i]f this is [a] really important thing to you in your life, voting, you probably would have done so within a six-year period.”

Sources: ABC News, CNN, The Atlantic / Photo Credit: Jon Husted Ohio SOS / Instagram