The Department of Justice has switched sides in an Ohio case contesting the purging of voter rolls of the names of registered citizens who have not recently cast a ballot. The case is another in a years-long run of cases involving Ohio elections that have pitted Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted against voter advocate organizations, the NAACP, the Democratic Party, and the DOJ. Sari Horwitz at The Washington Post writes:
The move is part of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to support restrictions on who is eligible to vote, a radical change in philosophy from the previous Justice Department, which sued a number of states over voting laws that it deemed discriminatory against minorities. [...]
“The law hasn’t changed since the department accurately told the court that Ohio’s voter purge was unlawful,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “The facts haven’t changed. Only the leadership of the department has changed. The Justice Department’s latest action opens the door for wide-scale unlawful purging of the voter registration rolls across our country.”
The move is clearly part of a trend.
The DOJ had already reversed itself and stopped contesting a 2011 Texas voter ID law that had been blasted by the courts and rejected even after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in the landmark Shelby County v. Holder ruling in 2013. Voter advocates had argued that the law targeted young people and minorities who are more likely to vote Democratic. Several federal courts found the Texas law unconstitutional. In April, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi issued a ruling saying the law intentionally discriminated against black and Latino voters. Two years previously, she likened the law to a “poll tax” designed specifically to suppress minority voters.
Under the Obama administration, as it had done in the Texas case, Justice took the side of foes of Ohio’s purge of tens of thousands citizens who have not voted in two years or responded to a letter asking them to confirm their registration.