Ohio purging voter rolls

[csziggy]

2. I torn about this - the purged voters were not voting

From the link you provided:

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, says canceling registrations for voters who missed three straight federal elections helps keep voting rolls current. Since 2011, the state has cleared out more than 2 million records of people who have moved or died, he said.

Those who don't vote over a six-year stretch or respond to a postcard mailed to their address have only themselves to blame, he said. "If this is really important thing to you in your life, voting, you probably would have done so within a six-year period," he said in an interview.

People who don't respond to the postcard can be removed from voting lists if they sit out the next two federal elections. Many other states only remove voters from the rolls if they have died or moved to a new address.

I can understand removing people who have not voted for long periods and who do not respond to a contact attempt - but I don't believe that purges should be done just before a presidential election or just before any election.

Clean up the voting rolls AFTER certain elections. Send a card after the election telling people since they haven't voted they will be removed from the rolls. Then once they are removed from the list of active voters, send another card telling them that. This would give people a chance to get re-registered well before the next election.

Better yet automatically register everyone who is eligible and forced people to opt out of their most important right as a citizen.

Even better, make voting compulsory as is done in Australia:

Voting is Compulsory

The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, under section 245(1), states: "It shall be the duty of every elector to vote at each election".

Under the Electoral Act, the actual duty of the elector is to attend a polling place, have their name marked off the certified list, receive a ballot paper and take it to an individual voting booth, mark it, fold the ballot paper and place it in the ballot box.

<SNIP>

As voting is compulsory, electors are given a number of ways to cast their vote at an election, including postal voting, pre-poll voting, absent voting, voting at Australian overseas missions and voting at mobile teams at hospitals and nursing homes and in remote localities, as well as ordinary voting at a polling place in their electorate.

Because of the secrecy of the ballot, it is not possible to determine whether a person has completed their ballot paper prior to placing it in the ballot box. It is therefore not possible to determine whether all electors have met their legislated duty to vote. It is, however, possible to determine that an elector has attended a polling place or mobile polling team (or applied for a postal vote, pre-poll vote or absent vote) and been issued with a ballot paper.
More: http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/voting/index.htm

At the link are lists of other countries where voting is compulsory.

Considering the low voter turn out in this country, it would be a wonderful fund raiser!