CLEVELAND — The Nov. 5 election is 117 days away, and in less than two weeks, thousands of Ohio registered voters will lose their eligibility to cast a ballot.
Nearly 160,000 Ohio voter registrations on a list released by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose are set to be purged from the state's database due to inactivity by July 22.
"There's some misinterpretations that people think that we are haphazardly going and canceling people's voter registrations, and we're not," Tony Kaloger, deputy director for the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, told 3News.
Ohio law allows for the removal of registered voters who have not cast a ballot in the past four years or have submitted a change-of-address form at the U.S. Post Office, which alerts local boards of elections that a resident has moved. Election officials then mail a postcard to the address requesting confirmation.
The process is intended to remove voters from rolls who have moved out of state or have died. However, Ohio's "use-it-or-lose-it" law was challenged in court. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the process, which allows the state to remove voters from the rolls if they fail to return the mailed address confirmation form or do not vote for four consecutive years.
WKYC reached out to one of the voters on the list slated to be removed. Joe Calabrese is a former resident of Westlake, and while he did not know that he was on the published list, he did recently receive an automated text message from the Ohio Secretary of State's Office alerting him of his inactive voter status.
"We left Ohio five years ago, so we should not be on the rolls," Calabrese said. "I'm pretty impressed with the efficiency of the process."
However, Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates found that the largest groups of voters who are set to be purged are registered at homeless shelters. Among them, the largest number are registered at Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry's men's shelter at 2100 Lakeside Avenue in Cleveland.
"We are noticing that these are somewhat vulnerable voters who are at homeless shelters, college students, and that is concerning to us," Meredith Hellmer, president of NOVA, added.
So what should you do to make sure that you can cast your vote in November?
Voters should confirm their registration by contacting their local board of elections, whether by phone or by visiting the Ohio Secretary of State website. Residents can avoid being purged by updating or confirming their voter registration before July 22, and you can also click here to see if you are on the list.
However, if voters miss the deadline, they may simply re-register to vote online. Voter registration for the November election ends Oct. 7.