Sure, because there’s sooooo much cheating by the voters themselves, as Kobach proved.
“From online voter registration to these last chance mailings, every innovative reform implemented by my office over the last eight years has been done to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat,” he said in a statement.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!
“We want every eligible Ohioan to be an engaged, active participant in our elections.”
Well, there’s something we can agree on. And as disgusting as the purge is, the people who can respond to the mailing or re-register to vote need to do that if they can. There is only one way for eligible voters to prevent more of this crap - register and then show up at the polls.
To be honest, this is the best way to go about it.
I’m not supporting the booting of these voters off the rolls. But if you aren’t where we think you are, in terms of the voter registration, then this is the right way to go.
A bit of history: Back in the day, when registration was still stored on index cards, my mom’s cousin was the Republican Registrar of Voters in his little town of some 6,000 citizens. Every year, he had to do a mailing of those registered to ensure they were still at their registered addresses - it was called a Canvass. If the card came back undeliverable, you were removed. If the card came back with the appropriate response, your registration was extended.
Connecticut now has Motor Voter. If you have a driver’s license, you can choose to let the DMV send notification to your local voting district that you live at this address in the district. Cousin used to complain, as they were transitioning to this process, that it was very confusing and a duplication of effort. But it worked and continues to this day.
I don’t have a problem with a canvass. None at all. You’re either there or you’re not. Hell, I have Christmas cards returned to me annually for people whose address has changed. Why not for voters?
We’re in the 21st century. When states can easily gerrymander with surgical precision based on the race and residence of every voter, a county can cross check voter registration with residential tax records.
I’m still trying to figure out why this is such a big deal? If there is no penalty for remaining in the voter rolls after one moves, and in some places I’ve read stories of people trying to un-register because they were moving and the county election board didn’t have a process to take them off the rolls. And I do believe it is not against the law to have died and still be on the voter rolls.
So why is this a hot button issue? If a person died or moved then I can see how it affects the participation rate within the county but what advantage does it give to have a perfectly clean voter roll? And if one is convicted of a crime, felony or not, how are they/who is suppose to notify the election board?
Because voter fraud. Never mind that nearly all cases were perpetrated by registered GOP voters. It’s a crisis.
Just like the wall.
It isn’t a big deal. Husted, Kobach, etc aren’t arguing in good faith. They’re trying to purge voters who don’t show up as often because those voters are generally democrats.
I’d like to see a study of how many dead people vote in Ohio.
Property tax records work for home owners, but owners of rental properties are going to appear at several (perhaps many) addresses. Renters will not appear at all at their residential address.
Income tax records would be better, but still not definitive – not everyone files, and not everyone is required to file.
Then there is the question of just how much interconnection we want in these government systems.
Husted…one of Coach Kobach’s top recruits.
“Husted” sounds like some sort of violation…
“Oh, crap, Harley, we been husted agin’…”
sounds like an interesting zombie movie…
He’s now our Light Guv… (Huge eye roll)
But it’s reassuring to note that he’s still an asshole.
Sure, but even if the tax record check only gets the homeowners, that’s probably still a significant number of people. I’m sure there are other cross checks that can be done using existing county or state records. As I say, the information is available somewhere because it’s being used to gerrymander.
Really if this was such a huge and important deal then why aren’t these Republican SoS making sure that their county election boards have the time, access to resources to do do this job?
Hmm, I wonder how many of these have been mailed to addresses in Democratic strongholds? How many have been mailed to non-white people? I bet the fraction is higher than you would expect…just because I don’t trust the Republicans to be honest about this. Keeping the rolls updated is fine, but the Republicans have shown they are not honest brokers in this, which makes them totally suspect. If Husted is not showing publicly how this is working, then he’s probably trying to slip in past people and remove enough Democrats for Ohio to go Republican in 2020. And, it’s on him to prove that assumption wrong.
Because to fix the process would negate a very profitable and strong campaign point.
And we can’t have that, can we?
We need a snark font here like LGM has.
I still can’t get over how using logic and reason has been consigned to the dustbin.
So what do these letters look like? Do they include a postage-paid reply card or envelope? With the correct address printed on it?