Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has proposed that voters who were purged from the state’s voter rolls in 2015 be allowed to vote in the 2016 election using provisional ballots. Husted’s proposal, part of a motion filed with U.S. District Court in Columbus, is in response to a recent U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the system Ohio was using to clear some inactive voters off the voting lists violated federal laws. In its ruling Sept. 23, the appellate court said the system, which was triggered when an inactive voter missed two years of elections, violated federal provisions which barred the culling of voter rolls solely because a person had not voted regularly. The proposal from the state Thursday would not resolve the entire case. But it would resolve how to handle voters for this November’s election. The plaintiffs in the case, A. Philip Randolph Institute, American Civil Liberties Union Ohio and the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, will have a chance to respond to the proposal.
… The lawsuit, filed in federal court in April, contended the process Ohio used to cull voters from the voting rolls violated federal laws.
Elections boards weed out ineligible voters — those who have died or been found incompetent or convicted of felonies or who have moved from the voting jurisdiction. But Ohio’s process for years has also been triggered by lack of voting.
The plaintiffs argued that trigger violated specific provisions in the National Voting Rights Act of 1993 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 which say registered voters may not be disqualified simply because they have not voted.
Full Article: Ohio proposes that voters culled from voting rolls in 2015 be allowed to vote in November’s general election | cleveland.com.