(Columbus) – Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced today the launch of a rigorous statewide election integrity initiative aimed at ensuring the accuracy of Ohio’s voter registration database. Beginning this week, the Secretary of State’s office will work with 88 county boards of elections to conduct routine but enhanced maintenance on the voter list, targeting inactive registrations for lawful removal.
“Every state is required to have an ongoing process to verify the accuracy of its voter rolls, but Ohio has the most advanced and effective protocols in the nation,” said Secretary LaRose. “This work is not only critical to keeping our elections honest, but it’s also essential to making sure our election officials can properly plan for the right number of ballots, voting machines, polling places and poll workers. That starts with keeping accurate voter records.”
As part of the office’s ongoing voter list maintenance protocols, Secretary LaRose sent a directive to the boards today instructing them to review and report voter registration records that have been confirmed by law as inactive for the last four years. Boards have been directed to identify the following records:
Change of Address:These registrations likely became inactive because a voter moved to a new address and failed to update a registration. Voter records are cross-checked with the U.S. Postal Service’s National Change of Address (NCOA) registry. Registrations that appear to be inactive due to a voter’s change of address are placed in confirmation status, meaning a notice is sent to the inactive voter’s address asking them to update their status or risk cancelation. If a voter fails to respond to that notice or engage in any kind of “voter-initiated activity,” such as voting, submitting a valid absentee ballot application, updating a registration or signing a petition within a period of two federal elections, the registration may be canceled. Registrations flagged for cancelation in 2024 were first identified by the NCOA process in 2020, and they have been confirmed inactive for a period of four consecutive years.
Past Due Removals:The Secretary directed the county boards to review their registration data for any records previously flagged for removal after the required four-year waiting period. If the registrations are confirmed again to be inactive and eligible for removal, the boards have been directed to initiate that process. The Secretary of State’s Office of Data Analytics and Archive, the first of its kind in the nation, identified this issue as part of an ongoing data integrity investigation.
Returned Acknowledgements:These new registrations received an acknowledgement notice from a county board of elections that was returned as undeliverable by the Postal Service. By law, the registration must be placed in confirmation status, meaning the voter is notified by forwardable mail that they either need to update the registration or engage in “voter-initiated activity” to avoid cancelation.
BMV Mismatches:By law, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles provides identification records to boards of elections used to verify voter registrations, such as a registrant’s name, date of birth, last four digits of a Social Security number, driver’s license number and whether the person has been identified as deceased. If any of this information mismatches with a voter’s registration, the registration must be put into confirmation status, meaning the voter is notified by forwardable mail that they either need to update the registration or engage in “voter-initiated activity” to avoid cancelation.
All inactive registrations that legally qualify for removal from the voter rolls will be listed for public review on the Ohio Secretary of State’s website. Secretary LaRose is the first secretary of state in the nation to publish a Registration Readiness roster, allowing Ohioans to check inactive registrations as a “last chance” notice before the removal process is initiated. After extensive efforts to verify a registration’s status during the four-year waiting period, Secretary LaRose has directed boards to remove confirmed inactive registrations from the voter rolls, as required by state and federal law.
“Ohio’s voter list maintenance procedures have been administered by bipartisan election officials for at least the last 30 years, since the passage of the National Voter Rights Act,” said Secretary LaRose. “These steps should give Ohioans confidence that election integrity is our top priority. The process we’re initiating this week is just one part of a larger, aggressive effort to make sure Ohio is ready for another high-profile presidential election this fall. We’ll have more to announce soon.