Supreme Court Greenlights Ohio's Voter Purge Policy

[Igel]

53. It depends.

Did they not vote because they died? Moved?

Those are common reasons not to vote for 10 years.

It inflates the rolls. My usual example is where I grew up. If the hadn't purged me from the rolls, I'd still be on them from 1978. As well as everybody who was registered in 1978 or any later year. I don't know anybody there now. It went from 3500 people to 3500 people, but transitioned from prosperous working class to moderately poor lower class to mixed, staunchly middle or upper-middle, in those 40 years. It would have had maybe 2600 voting-age people in 1978, and probably about the same amount now. All those who registered since then would be easily over 10000. So if 100% of the voters voted, there'd be perhaps a 20% voter-turnout.

It would also easily allow for all kinds of people to vote by mail using fake names. And if an additional 1000 people voted who weren't alive or living there, it would just bring the voters up to 30% or so of the electorate.

Heck, by now I'd be able to cast ballots in Baltimore County, Newark (DE), Hoboken (NJ), Brighton (NY), a couple of places in Eugene (OR), in Los Angeles, and a couple of places around Houston. The voting population of the US, total population 330 million or so, would be well over a couple billion.

At the same time, it's easy to return the card. Register on line. Go to the Post Office and get a registration card. Register through the DMV or whatever the motor-vehicles/drivers-license folk are called in your neck of the woods. Even post-purge, it's very likely that a voter could still cast a provisional ballot. (And while the CT folk love to say they're *never* counted, "they're always counted" is far closer to the truth, provided that the information is accurate and the ballot filled out correctly.)