A Democratic State lawmaker is sponsoring a bill that would prevent the Republican Secretary of State from removing many people from voter rolls. Ohio Public Radio’s Jo Ingles reports.
Representative Kathleen Clyde says her bill would not allow the state’s top election official to purge voters for failing to vote often enough or failing to update their addresses.
"In Ohio, in the last five years, roughly two million voters have been purged. This is the most aggressive purging in the country.”
Clyde says minority voters have been disproportionately purged. In a written statement, Secretary of State Jon Husted says he’s brought the state into compliance with the national voting rights act. He says he’s sent reminders to 61,000 voters who needed to update records and says passage of Clyde’s bill would block the office from doing that in the future.