Ohio county elections officials are wrestling with mass voter registration challenges
County election officials around Ohio are seeing scores if not hundreds of voter registration challenges on the eve of the 2024 election. Cleveland.com recently detailed the extent of the effort, led in large part by an organization that grew out of efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Meanwhile, The Akron Beacon Journal reported on a parallel effort to challenge Ohio’s voter rolls in federal court — this time led by a different organization committed to finding widespread alleged voter fraud. Ohio’s Republican Attorney General and Secretary of State have dismissed those claims as “palpably baseless” and urged the court to dismiss the case. Similar lawsuits have been filed in at least six other states.
With this flood of registration challenges, voting rights groups have sprung into action. In a Thursday letter to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, the ACLU, Brennan Center, Common Cause and the League of Women Voters argued voters are being improperly removed after the federally mandated 90-day cut off and notice-and-waiting period provisions.
Also this week, the watchdog group Campaign Legal Center sent letters to election officials in 11 states to offer guidance on what is and is not legal when it comes to these mass registration challenges.
Butler County
One of the biggest targets for registration challenges has been Butler County. Board of elections director Nicole Unzicker and deputy director Eric Corbin explain they’ve received close to 1,900 challenges in the current cycle.
“The records that we hold right now show that the last challenge that was submitted was in 2015,” Unzicker said.
For comparison, Ohio’s largest county, Franklin, has seen 1,193 since this year’s primary election. Spokesman Aaron Sellers notes challenges, especially in a presidential year, are normal, but the current figure is higher than they’ve seen in past cycles.
Some of the challenges in Butler County are trivial. On Sept. 4, for instance, the board had to deal with 15 voters who had two spaces in their name instead of one. The board voted to delete the extra space. But another chunk of challenges argued voters in Butler County should be removed because they’re allegedly registered elsewhere. Corbin explained the board took no action, because legally, they can’t.
“The board of elections, because of federal law, does not have the authority to cancel a voter’s registration in that situation, or force them to vote a provisional ballot just because they’ve received one of these (national change of address) changes.”
Unzicker noted some residents are snowbirds and shift their mail elsewhere part of the year. They’ve also seen examples of an entire household getting flagged because one of the kids changed their address when they left for college.
Although that meeting’s challenges went nowhere, Unzicker explained there’s still a cost. Under state law, they have to investigate when a challenge is filed, and they’ve seen a lot of challenges.
“There’s always room for improvement,” she said, “but to have these challenges has definitely been a — I think we’ve had an additional 10 meetings for our board to process these voter challenges.”
The broader trend
In their letter, the voting rights groups zero in on actions by the Delaware, Muskingum and Logan County boards of elections. Unlike what happened in Butler County, in each case of those cases board members sustained allegations of voters who had moved away and registered elsewhere. In removing those voters, the groups argued, the boards violated Section 8(d) of the National Voter Registration Act.
That provision prohibits the removal of a voter from the rolls based on change of residence unless the voter explicitly asks to be removed, or they fail to respond to a notice and then fail to vote in the next two federal general elections. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same provision that drives Ohio’s “supplemental process” that opponents often refer to as a voter purge.
Because the counties removed voters without waiting the required four years, they contend, the counties violated federal law.
“As made clear in recent guidance from the United States Department of Justice, absent written confirmation from the voter themselves, removal based on change of residence must follow the (notice-and-waiting) provisions of Section 8(d),” they wrote.
They add that by taking on the challenges the counties are likely violating Section 8(c) as well, which establishes a 90-day cut off for any program to “systematically” remove voters from the rolls.
“The challenges that are being processed in Delaware County — and potentially other Ohio counties — have all the hallmarks of systematic challenges,” they argued.
They note, rather than offering “individualized or personalized knowledge,” the challengers shared data they gathered from third parties based on “mostly non-governmental sources” and in some cases the challengers themselves didn’t even show up for the hearing.
In Delaware County, the board deadlocked on challenges based on third-party databases, but that doesn’t mean the voters are in the clear. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose casts the tie breaking vote, and the groups note they’re unsure if he’s taken steps to resolve the issue. ACLU of Ohio legal director Freda Levenson warned him not to disenfranchise those voters and to ensure any improper removals are restored.
“As Ohio’s chief election officer, Secretary LaRose must ensure compliance with the National Voter Registration Act,” she said. “It is his duty and responsibility to be fully acquainted with federal election law, and we urge him to refrain from unlawful removals, and correct all violations in an expedient manner.”
The source
Aaron Ockerman, who serves as executive director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials, explained the current surge in challenges comes in large part from the Ohio Election Integrity Network.
Ohio Capital Journal reached out to OEIN for this story without response. The organization is the state chapter of a group founded by Cleta Mitchell. Following the 2020 election, Mitchell was deeply involved in efforts to overturn the results in Georgia, and more recently she’s been amplifying fears of noncitizen voting in the 2024 election.
Ockerman said election officials understand the need for accurate voter rolls and respect the process for challenging discrepancies. “No one wants to hear a bureaucrat bellyache about how they have to do their jobs,” he joked, “and this is part of our jobs, right?”
Still, he said activists are testing the limits of an ad hoc, small-scale system.
“Our understanding of the statute really is that it was meant to be utilized more like by individuals who have personal knowledge,” Ockerman described. “Maybe of, their neighbor moved or something and they’re still on the voter rolls, or their neighbor died and they’re still on the voter rolls, or something like that.”
Kelly Dufour from Common Cause Ohio has been tracking registration challenges around Ohio and her tally is up to 17 counties.
“The challengers who are bringing the challenges are doing so in a very concerted way with an agenda,” she argued. “They are not individuals who just became interested in data one day and decided they would sit down and be helpful to the board of elections,”
Dufour argued the problem is magnified by LaRose’s silence on the issue. Without guidance from the state level, counties with varying resources are left to navigate a process some haven’t dealt with in years. And while any notice filed with the board triggers a complicated process, that doesn’t mean the underlying allegation has any merit.
“In some cases, challengers actually submitted forms for challenged voters that weren’t even on record in the county,” she said.
Still, Dufour worries even baseless claims could undermine the process and confidence in the results.
“At a time when all political parties should be focused on registering voters to participate,” she said, “some are instead deliberately trying to just sow distrust and don’t seem to care if they disenfranchise voters while they’re doing it.”
Nick Evans has spent the past seven years reporting for NPR member stations in Florida and Ohio. He got his start in Tallahassee, covering issues like redistricting, same sex marriage and medical marijuana. Since arriving in Columbus in 2018, he has covered everything from city council to football. His work on Ohio politics and local policing have been featured numerous times on NPR. Follow OCJ Reporter Nick Evans on Twitter.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
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