Ohio elections officials swamped with voter registration challenges | Reporters Roundtable

Sound of Ideas

Election Day is less than two weeks away. County boards of elections have their hands full, but adding to the workload is the high number of voter registration challenges being filed. Elections officials say the number of challenges is unprecedented. In Wood County alone, the elections board received challenges to 16,000 voter registrations. They were all filed by one person. They all must be investigated.

Voting rights organizations are concerned that recently naturalized citizens will be disenfranchised from voting in Ohio either due to poll workers' confusion or because of hurdles they say Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose's office has created. Naturalized citizens are citizens of the United States and have the same right to vote. But concerned groups say the state's photo ID law, and a new form put out by LaRose, may present difficulties for them should their status be challenged.

This week Attorney General Dave Yost announced indictments in illegal voting cases in the state -- a total of 6 people. More than 8 million are registered to vote in Ohio. Three people in Franklin County and one each in Cuyahoga, Summit and Portage counties are accused of voting illegally as non-citizens in past elections. The indictments amount to less than 1% of the 600 cases the secretary of state very publicly referred to the attorney general. And the person indicted in Cuyahoga County has been dead for two years.

We will begin Friday’s Reporters Roundtable we will talk over some of the voting issues officials are contending with as we get closer to Election Day.