Guidance needed on voter registration challenges

Ohio's elections officials — at all levels — take pride in safeguarding our elections process. They know their responsibilities and handle the job well. It seems some advocacy groups believe they need a little help, and that's a problem.According to a report by the Ohio Capital Journal, the Ohio Election Integrity Network has been approaching officials in multiple Ohio counties with lists of hundreds of voters they say should be deemed ineligible to vote and removed from the rolls. Voting rights advocates are asking Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose to do something about it by creating consistency for county boards of elections as they deal with voter registration challenges."We know election officials have a critical role to play, but they're already playing it," Kelly Dufour, voting and elections manager for Common Cause Ohio, said last week, according to the Capital Journal. "They don't need outside interference trying to lighten their load."Member organizations of the Ohio Voter Rights Coalition are asking LaRose to issue guidance that will help local boards of elections deal with Ohio EIN and other such groups.Rather than helping county elections officials, the OEIN effort seems to be designed to bog them down and make it harder for them to do their jobs. For example, during a Montgomery County Board of Elections meeting July 9, a person who said he was a member of an OEIN "research team" in the county presented a list of more than 50 voter registration challenges being made by the group in the county, and asked for a timeline for when those challenges would be handled, according to the Capital Journal.Board director Jeff Rezabek said he found it "absolutely disingenuous of Scott (Taylor) to come before the board and throw these questions out there," according to the Capital Journal. "He knows these answers," Rezabek said.LaRose must waste no time giving guidance and support to the counties dealing with these folks. Certainly, he must not join in the implication that those at local boards of elections who rightly take pride in their jobs need the help of troublemaking organizations."It is our assertion that this process that Ohio EIN is implementing is actually circumventing the process of voter challenges," Kayla Griffin, state director for All Voting is Local, said.She's right. It's time for LaRose to step in and put a stop to it. Ogden Newspapers