To the editor,
The Wood County Board of Elections is responsible for overseeing an annual Secretary of State directive to complete a process through which ineligible voters who have moved from Ohio are purged from the voter roll. The process uses the USPS National Change of Address (NCOA) database and requires records to be flagged as “Confirmation” status. However, the process allows ineligible voter records to remain on rolls at least four years with the same voting rights as “Active” status records. The process, completed in July 2024, purged close to 158,000 records of voters who moved from Ohio through April 2020. Records for voters who moved in May 2020 to the present date remain on voter rolls, subject to potential fraudulent use.
Any eligible voter is able to challenge eligibility status of another voter by submitting a prescribed form. I submitted 103 forms on June 21, and 112 forms (95 resubmitted) on August 13. It would have been insufficient to submit challenges solely on the basis of NCOA data. Therefore, my reasons for challenging residency of voters were: they moved, filed an address change with NCOA, registered to vote and voted in their moved-to state. Along with help from many volunteers, I provided supplemental documentation as a seed which would lessen the board’s investigation efforts — verifiable government data from outside sources, full names, addresses, dates of birth, and other data elements were provided to assure accuracy.
Board members were able to determine voters did not maintain residency status in order to remain eligible Ohio voters, but failed twice to fulfill their duty of purging them from Ohio’s voter roll. They did not review information they had, nor that which was made available to them
Other county Boards of Elections within the state are honorably fulfilling their duties, according to the law, by removing ineligible records of voters who have moved from Ohio. Why is the Wood County Board of Elections opposed to ensuring election integrity by maintaining accurate voter rolls?
Taina Romstadt
Lake Township/Northwood
