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Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

nytimes.com

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Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#31

Post by spamizbad »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #18
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't find out you need to re-register until it's too late.

Don't most places allow same day registration at the polls? Every state I've voted in does. Edit: ok, 2/5ths isn't most but it's still a lot. Chill with the down-votes, it was an honest question, not an attack on your ideology.

Only 21 states[1] offer same-day registration. It's far less common in the south and midwest regions of the US.

[1] http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/same-da...

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#32

Post by heavyset_go »

rymohr wrote: post #15
deaps wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Trapped behind the paywall. While the site it loading, just hit the escape key.

Any tricks for mobile?

Use Firefox mobile and install any of the paywall bypass plugins that work on the desktop version.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#33

Post by rdtsc »

> She went online and discovered that her name had also been flagged as an inactive voter. The state was in the process of removing her from its voter rolls.

> “I voted three times last year,” said Ms. Miller.

I am still baffled at the election system in this country. Every state does its own thing. One state uses paper, other uses some machines which can be easily hacked, some use both. Somehow voter ID is controversial, but India, with more people, poverty and issues seems to have managed it. Why can't they issue free IDs and track every voter in a database and call it a day?

> The state of Ohio had released names of 235,000 voters it planned to purge from voter rolls in September [...] voting rights groups found an unexplained tranche — around 20,000 people

But that means 200k some thousand should have been purged. If they died, and a death certificate was issued, doesn't some government database know about it and say, "yeah, person is dead purge their voter record". It's 2020 almost, we flew people to the moon, there is a Tesla roadster in Sun's orbit, self driving cars, but somehow managing a few hundred million voter records is an impossible task and I don't understand why.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#34

Post by bryanlarsen »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #18
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't find out you need to re-register until it's too late.

Don't most places allow same day registration at the polls? Every state I've voted in does. Edit: ok, 2/5ths isn't most but it's still a lot. Chill with the down-votes, it was an honest question, not an attack on your ideology.

Nope, deadline was a week ago yesterday.

https://www.rockthevote.org/voting-information/election-date...

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#35

Post by biomcgary »

According to the article, moderate Republicans in Ohio insisted on transparency for purging voter rolls. They sent out the proposed list to various voter advocacy groups across the political spectrum, which reviewed the proposed changes and flagged mistakes. 80% were purged correctly. 20% were not.

Rather than condemning Ohio, they should be praised for bringing transparency to the process (as long as the mistakes are corrected).

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#37

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #18
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't find out you need to re-register until it's too late.

Don't most places allow same day registration at the polls? Every state I've voted in does. Edit: ok, 2/5ths isn't most but it's still a lot. Chill with the down-votes, it was an honest question, not an attack on your ideology.

Only 17 states allow this. Only a subset of them have registration at the polls.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#38

Post by manderley »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #18
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't find out you need to re-register until it's too late.

Don't most places allow same day registration at the polls? Every state I've voted in does. Edit: ok, 2/5ths isn't most but it's still a lot. Chill with the down-votes, it was an honest question, not an attack on your ideology.

Guess what the Republicans eliminated in Ohio a few years ago: Same-day voter registration.

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#39

Post by notfromhere »

coryodaniel wrote: post #4

How does the purging actually work? Is there sole evil republican henchman with database access? Is there no oversight into what is actually purged? Trapped behind the paywall.

The Secretary of State is Republican, and surprise, the GOP pursues policies that restrict the ballot in a way that benefits them and disadvantages Democrats.

Ohio is a state where the GOP holds 75% of federal House seats despite winning only 50% of the vote. Similar effect holds for the state legislative offices

Re: Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%

#40

Post by not_a_cop75 »

spamizbad wrote: post #20
not_a_cop75 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How hard is it really for a voter to reregister? You guys are making it sound like it they're taking away driver's licenses or something. All you have to do is hit the website. If you don't have internet access hit a library.

Because this is HN and you're probably young-ish: When you're older and you've set down roots the last time you updated your voter registration was probably a few decades ago. Chances are your polling place hasn't likely changed either. So you know when elections come, you go to your usual polling place, give your name, get your ballet and "pull the lever" so to speak. You're not thinking "Oh I better double-check my…

I update my voter registration sometimes twice a year to match the party I most like at the time, It's always been online - easy peasy. I expect to get downvoted to hell but I also don't get why showing an ID to vote is such a big deal. After all, I have to look up the numbers in my drivers license to vote.

Also, how is it hard to vote? Absentee ballots are totally easy to get. If I was blind, I might have to plan ahead to get the help to do it. Otherwise, no biggie.

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