The Supreme Court may have just handed Ohio to the GOP, 5-4.
The three largest counties in Ohio have purged at least 144,000 voters over the last 20 years or so for failing to vote, essentially. Democrats and Republicans alike have executed purges, but it’s a practice that conspicuously disadvantages Democrats. In those same three counties, voters in blue-leaning neighborhoods were removed from the rolls at twice the rate of those in predominantly Republican areas.
Ohio claimed its habit of purging voters is just how it chooses to comply with federal law. After all, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requires states to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the names” of voters who’ve died or moved.
Specifically, the NVRA says that removal is justified when a voter fails to respond to a notice asking for confirmation of address that includes a prepaid, pre-addressed card and fails to vote in any election before the next two general elections for federal office occur.
But the NVRA also contains a Failure-to-Vote Clause: States can’t “remov[e] … the name of any person … by reason of the person’s failure to vote.” A later addition to the Clause specifies that the first part can’t be interpreted to restrict the states’ obligations under the rest of the NVRA.
Under the procedure set out by the NVRA, if you’re registered to vote in Ohio and change your address with USPS, the state sends you a notice with a “preaddressed, postage prepaid card ... asking them to verify that they still reside at the same address.” If you don’t, and you don’t vote for the next four years, you’re purged from the voter rolls. That’s 36 states’ worth of standard.
Ohio’s twist on this process is in using failure to vote as a trigger for sending a notice, even when there’s no indication a voter has moved—their so-called Supplemental Process. The same rule then applies as if the voter’s formally informed Ohio of a move: If they don’t vote for two years post-notice, they’re purged from the voter rolls.
So, the issue was, does Ohio’s process violate the prohibition on removing someone from the rolls solely for failure to vote?
The district court said it did not. On appeal to the Sixth Circuit, which hears appeals from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, two of three judges disagreed. The dissenter, however, said—and Alito quotes him—that “The State cannot remove the registrant’s name from the rolls for a failure to vote only, and Ohio does not do [that].”
That’s just specious.