Husted defends accurate and clean voter rolls in Ohio
Lead Summary
By
Press Release-
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted filed an appeal Friday with the United States Supreme Court in the case of A. Philip Randolph Institute and the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH) v. Jon Husted in his official capacity as the Ohio Secretary of State, which challenges Ohio’s longstanding process for maintaining its voter rolls.
“Maintaining accurate and up-to-date voter rolls is the responsibility of elections officials because the law requires it of us and the voters expect us to do it,” Secretary Husted said. “If an individual dies, moves without updating their registration or fails to respond to repeated attempts by elections officials to contact them, they will be removed from the rolls because maintaining the integrity of our elections and guarding against voter fraud is too important to do nothing.”
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Though the district court sided with the state in the case, a divided panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Ohio’s voter roll maintenance process, which has remained largely unchanged for over two decades, under both Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State. The process aims to remove outdated and inaccurate registrations from the voter rolls including those of deceased voters and individuals who have moved to a new jurisdiction.
"In light of the national conversation about elections, Ohio has been commended for how we maintain accurate voter rolls and we don't want to take a step backwards," Secretary Husted said.
Since taking office, Secretary Husted has made maintaining accurate voter rolls a priority in order to increase election integrity and voter confidence. These efforts have resulted in the removal of 532,000 deceased Ohioans from the rolls and the resolution of 1.6 million voters who were registered more than once.
Proper maintenance of the state’s voter rolls have resulted in fewer Ohioans having trouble casting a ballot and more ballots being counted. On average, fewer provisional ballots have been cast during Secretary Husted’s tenure than under his predecessor and a higher percentage of those cast have been counted.
In addition to his efforts to maintain accurate voter rolls, Secretary Husted has also undertaken unprecedented voter engagement efforts, including reaching out to 1.5 million registered voters to update their registrations and to 1.65 million Ohioans who are eligible, but unregistered, to encourage them to participate.
While partisan activists have asserted that up to 2 million voters had been wrongfully removed from the voter rolls, data from the 2016 Presidential Election returned only 7,500 ballots cast by those removed after election officials were not able to contact them.
“Maintaining accurate and up-to-date voter rolls is the responsibility of elections officials because the law requires it of us and the voters expect us to do it,” Secretary Husted said. “If an individual dies, moves without updating their registration or fails to respond to repeated attempts by elections officials to contact them, they will be removed from the rolls because maintaining the integrity of our elections and guarding against voter fraud is too important to do nothing.”
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Though the district court sided with the state in the case, a divided panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Ohio’s voter roll maintenance process, which has remained largely unchanged for over two decades, under both Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State. The process aims to remove outdated and inaccurate registrations from the voter rolls including those of deceased voters and individuals who have moved to a new jurisdiction.
"In light of the national conversation about elections, Ohio has been commended for how we maintain accurate voter rolls and we don't want to take a step backwards," Secretary Husted said.
Since taking office, Secretary Husted has made maintaining accurate voter rolls a priority in order to increase election integrity and voter confidence. These efforts have resulted in the removal of 532,000 deceased Ohioans from the rolls and the resolution of 1.6 million voters who were registered more than once.
Proper maintenance of the state’s voter rolls have resulted in fewer Ohioans having trouble casting a ballot and more ballots being counted. On average, fewer provisional ballots have been cast during Secretary Husted’s tenure than under his predecessor and a higher percentage of those cast have been counted.
In addition to his efforts to maintain accurate voter rolls, Secretary Husted has also undertaken unprecedented voter engagement efforts, including reaching out to 1.5 million registered voters to update their registrations and to 1.65 million Ohioans who are eligible, but unregistered, to encourage them to participate.
While partisan activists have asserted that up to 2 million voters had been wrongfully removed from the voter rolls, data from the 2016 Presidential Election returned only 7,500 ballots cast by those removed after election officials were not able to contact them.