A million Ohio voters didn’t get absentee ballot mailing

OHIO? Nothing new! 


http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/33466-ohio-polls-showed-pot-legalization-winning--but-then-it-failed-21

Federal law prohibits states from removing voters solely because they haven't voted, but it also requires them to keep voter lists up to date. Ohio residents who are removed from voting lists must re-register at least 30 days before an election.

"Kicked Off"
In Cleveland's Cuyahoga County, 5 percent of voters in neighborhoods that backed Obama by more than 60 percent in 2012 were purged last year due to inactivity, according to the Reuters analysis of the voter lists. In neighborhoods where Obama got less than 40 percent of the vote, 2.5 percent of registered voters were removed for that reason.

In Franklin County, home to the state capital Columbus, 11 percent of voters in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods have been purged since 2012 due to inactivity. Only 6 percent of voters in Republican-leaning neighborhoods have been purged.
The disparity is especially stark in Hamilton County, where affluent Republican suburbs ring Cincinnati, which has one of the highest child-poverty rates in the country.

In the heavily African-American neighborhoods near downtown, more than 10 percent of registered voters have been removed due to inactivity since 2012. In suburban Indian Hill, only 4 percent have been purged due to inactivity.


http://middlebororeview.blogspot.com/search?q=ohio+elections


Congressman John Conyers has done some heroic and controversial things - one that was memorable was when Republicans refused to allow ANY Democrats to speak during a public hearing. Congressman Conyers held a Demo0cratic Hearing that Republicans had relegated to a boiler room in the basement - inadequate lighting and electronics feeds. 

This was during the time when Republicans were being particularly childish - like the hearing Republicans adjourned and shut off the lights to prevent Democrats from speaking. . 

Congressman John Conyers wrote a book: 

What Went Wrong In Ohio[edit]
In May, 2005, Conyers released What Went Wrong In Ohio: The Conyers Report On The 2004 Presidential Election, which discusses the voting irregularities in the state of Ohio during the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election. The evidence offered consists of statistical abnormalities in the differences between exit poll results and actual votes registered at those locations. The book also discusses reports of faulty electronic voting machines and the lack of credibility of those machines used to tally votes.

He was one of 31 members of the House who voted not to count the electoral votes from Ohio in the 2004 presidential election.[21]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Conyers

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted’s decision not to mail absentee ballot applications to 13 percent of the state’s registered voters has drawn fire and raised questions.

A million Ohio voters didn’t get absentee ballot mailing

By Darrel RowlandThe Columbus Dispatch  •  Sunday October 2, 2016

The news release said, “Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted today announced his office will begin mailing absentee ballot applications to voters statewide this weekend.”

What it didn’t say was that more than a million of Ohio’s 7.7 million registered voters wouldn’t get the mailing, because Husted’s office had pared the list beforehand.

The 1,035,795 voters left out fall into two categories:

• 650,730 who have changed their address. This includes 568,456 who moved within Ohio; they were sent cards asking them to update their address. The 82,274 who moved out of state were mailed information on how to cancel their Ohio registration.

• 385,065 who did not vote in either the 2012 or 2014 elections and have not responded to queries about their address from their county board of elections.

“We’re working extremely hard to encourage participation this November and to help people make sure they have the information they need to cast a ballot with ease,” said Husted spokesman Joshua Eck.

More than 35,000 already have responded to the request to update their addresses, which can be done online at the secretary of state’s website.

Still, Husted’s decision not to mail absentee ballot applications to 13 percent of the state’s registered voters has drawn fire and raised questions — although some of it is just the usual political heat surrounding voting rights in an important swing state.

“Mr. Husted is playing fast and loose with the absentee ballot access of certain registered and eligible voters,” said state Rep. Kathleen Clyde when the applications went out last month.

“Husted has taken it upon himself to deem one group of registered voters ‘active,’ while unfairly judging another group ‘inactive.’”

The Kent Democrat and frequent Husted critic introduced a bill last year to require absentee ballot applications be mailed to all registered voters. It has yet to receive a hearing in the Republican-controlled legislature.

Husted’s separate purge of registered voters due to voting inactivity was deemed an overreach recently by a federal appeals court.

“Having already been ordered by the federal appeals court that he cannot discriminate against voters who do not regularly vote, Secretary Husted again is discriminating against 385,065 voters who do not regularly vote,” said Cleveland attorney Subodh Chandra, who has mounted several legal challenges against the secretary of state.

“Yet again he skews the electorate against minority, poorer and working-class voters who do not participate as frequently, but who should be equally invited to participate in our democracy.”

While voters who did not receive an absentee application could argue they are being treated differently, actually winning such a lawsuit is “no slam dunk,” said Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California at Irvine who runs a much-watched blog on election law.

“The state can say it reasonably limited absentee ballot (applications) to those who have shown they are likely to use them,” Hasen said.

One who did not receive an application was Al Rosenfield — husband of Peg Rosenfield, elections specialist with the Ohio League of Women Voters — who has cast ballots for 42 straight years.

“I was surprised when my wife got an absentee ballot application in the mail, but I did not,” he said. “I have never missed voting in an election since at least 1974.”

The secretary of state’s office said Al Rosenfield was supposed to receive application as well, but acknowledged that some get lost in the mail.

Peg Rosenfield said she and her husband helped residents of Thurber Tower, a residence for seniors, check their voter registrations. Three people said they had not received an application even though a check found their voter registrations were up to date.

Eck said if voters want to apply for an absentee ballot they can download an application from the secretary of state’s website.

Matt Damschroder, Husted’s elections director who previously held the same position for Franklin County, said the secretary of state’s outreach to absentee voters is more inclusive than ones in previous elections made by several individual counties, including ones he supervised.

A record 806,000 already have submitted a request for an absentee ballot. The voter registration deadline is Oct. 11.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/10/02/1-a-million-ohio-voters-didnt-get-absentee-ballot-mailing.html#