In the last few years the Ohio Secretary of State has purged thousands of registered voters from the voting rolls. In Hamilton County alone over 12,000 registered voters were removed, making them ineligible to vote in the upcoming presidential and local elections in November. The League of Women Voters of the Cincinnati Area encourages all voters to confirm their registration status, so they are not turned away when they go to vote in November.
Voters can check their registration online on the Hamilton County Board of Elections website, http://boe.hamilton-co.org/ . The website also has simple instructions for how to update a voter’s address online. If you don’t have access to a computer, call the local League of Women Voters office (513-281- 8683) and a volunteer will look it up for you.
If you thought you were registered, but your name is not on the list of voters maintained by the Board of Elections, you may have been purged. In order to vote in the November election, you must submit a new voter registration form before the October deadline. But don’t wait and cut it too close, register now. Registration forms can be downloaded from the Board of Elections website http://boe.hamilton-co.org/ and are available at all library branches. The form must be signed and mailed in.
Registered voters most likely to have been purged from the list of eligible voters are people who have not voted in the last few years and people who have moved, even if the move was just across the street. Check now – don’t lose your right to vote!
[Elizabeth Brown is the Vice President of the League of Women Voters Cincinnati chapter.]