I voted in the 2000 Presidential election. I don’t believe I’ve voted in any election since then, although I may have. I’m trying to find out what the Ohio law is for “de-registering” a voter - in other words, would my “voting inactivity” have de-registered me? I haven’t moved since I voted in 2000, and I have renewed my drivers license since then, in fact. I believe Ohio does something with voter registrations and drivers licenses. I’ve never been convicted or accused of any crimes, nor arrested, in fact…
Other than contacting my local board of elections to be sure, is there a way I can be “reasonably” sure I am still registered ? I figured if I hadn’t met any conditions to be “de-registered”, I’d still be registered.
I am not from Ohio, but I would expect it would take more than 4 years to have you pulled from the voter registry. There are quite a few people who only vote in presidential elections. Still, contacting your local elections board is really the only way to be sure.
I’m puzzled by some of the details I’ve read in the reports of US voter registrations.
I’ve seen reports that mention “Democratic” or “Republican” registrations being unfairly mislaid or rejected, or whatever. Do you have to indicate how you’re going to vote on your registration? Doesn’t that go against the whole principle of the secret ballot?
Who do you vote for in each election? In our federal election, you vote for one federal candidate, and similarly for each provincial election.
Are there many different elections on each US ballot? What would they be? (I guess President, VP, local representative to congress, state governor, state represntative, county councillor/city mayor,… others? Do you vote for different levels of government at the same time?
Regarding lapsing from the voters’ list: a while back the Canadian federal elections commission got fed up with having to repopulate the federal voters’ list for each federal election, so they created a permanent nationwide voters’ list. There’s a checkbox on your tax forms where you can agree to forward your address info to Elections Canada. This meant a lot less work for updates.
I think the provincial voters’ list is not necessarily the same–but Ontario realigned its provincial ridings (electoral districts) so thatthey’d be the same as the federal ones, so perhaps they can share voters’ lists…
How locally are your voters’ lists handled? Statewide? By each county?
It varies from state to state, but in most jurisdictions you can optionally declare a party affiliation on your registration. This is for use in determining which of the primary elections you can vote in, and you are in no way compelled to cast your ballot for the same party you are registered with.
In a typical election, the ballot will have candidates/issues at all levels of government. At the federal level, the candiates are for President/Vice President (elected every 4 years), Senators (2 from each state, elected for a 6 year term with staggered terms, so that 1/3 of the Senate is up for election every 2 years) and Congressman (allocated to each state based on population to a 2 year term).
At the state/local level, the candidates vary from one area to the next, but typically we will have everything from governor and state legislators to mayors, city council, local school board, local judges and magistrates (usually appointed positions, but subject to retention votes).
Then there are things like initiatives, referendums and constitutional amendments to be voted on, etc.
Due to the boundaries for state/local legislative districts, the ballots will be different from one polling place to the next. While I might be in State Senate District 5, my friend three bloacks away could be in District 19, so he would have different candidates for that position.
I think I have heard that in Ohio you are taken off the list if you do not vote at least once in four years, which would mean that if you voted in 2000 you are still there, but if you were to not vote this year you’d be taken off. No cite; I just seem to recall seeing that somewhere.
This is GQ, and the OP’s question has been asked and answered: is there a way to be assured that s/he is still registered without contacting the local Board of Elections? No. Only the board of elections can confirm your place on the voter rolls. Go to Election Ohio to find the contact information for your county of residence.
You can optionally choose to register as a member of a particular party in order to vote in that party’s primaries or caucuses. You are under no obligation to vote for any particular party (or to vote at all) when it comes time for the general election. When someone says “I’m a registered democrat/republica/libertarian/green/purple-people-eater,” this is what they’re talking about.
You vote for electors for President, US Representative for your district, US Senator for your state (if one of their terms are up (they are elected for six years, with staggered terms beginning every two years)), some variety of state legislators, depending on how your state legislature is set up, Governor, if the term coincides with Presidential elections (some do, some don’t), and mayors, local judges, county/municipal executives and legislators, miscellaneous public officials, and state and local referenda. This happens all at once. In all states there are statewide general elections once per year. In odd years these will be limited to various state and local offices and referenda. In even, non-presidential years, the US House and one third of the US Senate is up for election in addition to whatever local stuff there is. (These are called mid-terms, because they’re in the middle of the presidential term.) There may be statewide or smaller special elections at other times during the year in certain circumstances. The California recall is an example of such.
Voter turnout is usually highest during presidential elections, medium during mid-term elections, and low in odd year elections. Depending on demographics, it may be advantageous or not to run for a certain office based upon whether it is elected in a presidential, mid-term, or odd year.
Voter registration is a matter of state law and is generally handled by the county or municipality. Once you register, your registration shouldn’t lapse ever, unless you die. If you move, then you need to re-register in your new place.
The Federal government appoints the judges for the provincial/territorial superior trial courts and courts of appeal, the Tax Court of Canada, both levels of the Federal Court, and the Supreme Court of Canada.
Provincial governments appoint the judges for the inferior provincial courts (called the Provincial Court in some provinces, the Ontario Court in Ontario, and the Quebec Court in Quebec).
Hopefully they do the thing that the Constitution requires them to do (whatever that may be).
My personal opinion (for what it is worth) is that, at some point, a state has a right to purge an inactive voter registration. It would be nice if that was coupled with a relatively easy way to re-register and vote, so that people who end up purged despite not having actually moved don’t lose their ability to vote as a result. The alternative is to track people much more closely as they move around (or not), and I doubt that is something liberals OR conservatives really want to promote as an idea.
Now, if you are purging voter rolls, and then making it hard to re-register and vote upon finding out when you show up to do so, that’s got some issues I think.
The Board of Elections already sends out multiple notifications before removing inactive voters from the rolls, at least according to policy.
I’m for erring on the side of keeping people on the active rolls, even if it results in the ghastly inconvenience of polling place workers having to scroll through extra names at election time to check off voters.
I have voted in all the regular (i.e. every two years at least) elections since moving to Ohio, so I’m not affected by the Great Stalinist Voter Purge.
Nearly all states have policies to purge inactive voters. There’s nothing particularly underhanded about it: you don’t want people on the rolls who have died or moved away.
The Ohio case is being contested because they are purging voters who have not voted in several elections. This is prohibited: rulings have said that you can’t purge people solely on that basis. You need to have some mechanism to check. Often, this involves sending cards to voters addresses with “address correction requested.” The USPS will return them if the voter isn’t there. I’d also expect the Board of Elections to check the obituaries each morning (banks do it here in NY).
The argument is that the Ohio Board of Elections was purging just on the basis that people hadn’t voted.
*"If, as the ACLU asserts, 7,500 would-be voters were turned away in November 2016 because their registrations had been invalidated, that is unfortunate. But it’s fair to ask why they didn’t respond when the secretary of state’s office asked whether they had moved, or respond to any of the other routine notices registered voters receive yearly?
If they had moved, why didn’t they update their registrations? Ohio makes it easy, with an online system through which nearly a half-million voters have updated their registrations.
The federal law in question bars states from canceling any voter’s registration simply for failure to vote. That would be wrong, and that isn’t what Ohio does.
The best cure for would-be voters being turned away at the polls is for more voting-age Ohioans to keep their registrations current.
It’s no secret that Democrats, minority and low-income voters are more likely than others to go without voting for years, and roll-purging thus affects those groups disproportionately.
But the simple requirement to keep your registration current isn’t unreasonable. Voter-rights groups should focus efforts on getting the word out. And the secretary of state’s office should do everything it can to help them."*
It is not a case of people moving and not keeping their registration up to date, it is a matter of people not moving, and not voting in 2 elections. You don’t have to move to get purged from the rolls, all you have to do is miss 2 elections, and then not notice the post card that the BOE sends you. I get a ton of spam that goes straight into the trash, and having seen pictures of the postcard (never got one, as I vote nearly every year), I can certainly see tossing it out with the rest of the junk mail without really looking at it.
I get multiple mailings from the election board every year, so it’s not just one post card.
As I indicated previously however, the board/secretary of state’s office should be in the business of facilitating voter participation, not making it harder with what seems like a dubious justification of “streamlining” voter rolls.
