Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read
Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.
Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman,
editor-in-chief
COLUMBUS—Democratic Ohio secretary of state candidate state Rep. Kathleen Clyde (pictured)
(D-Kent) today released a statement applauding the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals’
decision on Wednesday that allows purged voters to have their provisional ballots counted in
the Nov. 6 midterm election.
“I am happy Ohioans who were wrongly purged from the rolls will be allowed to cast a
ballot and have that ballot counted," said Clyde, a Kent Democrat who faces
Republican Frank LaRose relative to her bid for Ohio secretary of state. "It’s taken years of
hard work from the A. Philip Randolph Institute and so many others, but we are one step
closer to rooting out this discriminatory process that has disenfranchised thousands."
The 6th Circuit decision, a divided ruling in fact, requires county boards of elections to count
provisional ballots cast by eligible voters who have been purged from the voter rolls as long as
they live in the same county as when they were purged.
An Oct 11 order of Judge George C. Smith of the Federal District Court of the Southern District
of Ohio in Columbus, which the appeals court reversed on Wednesday, sanctioned the purging
of Ohio citizens from voter rolls for various reasons, including voters who had not voted
in six years.
Though the 6th Circuit case at bar is officially an appeal from a lower court ruling, it arises out of a U.S. Supreme Court decision issued in June that upheld voter purging in Ohio as legal, Wednesday's 6th Circuit appellate court decision a reprieve that says provisional ballots of purged voters who live in the same county must be counted for the upcoming November election.
Congressional Democrats were outraged by the U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this year, some of them blaming President Trump and congressional Republicans.
"This decision by the Trump era Supreme Court emboldens those who want to disenfranchise voters and puts up barriers to citizens exercising their constitutional right to vote," said Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, a Toledo Democrat whose ninth congressional district extends to Cleveland. "Purging voters from the rolls is wrong, plain and simple and this 5-4 decision takes us backward."
Clyde said things will change in Ohio if she is elected secretary of state.
"When I’m secretary of state," said Clyde " I’ll stop the purging of eligible Ohiovoters on day one so that all Ohio voters
will have the opportunity to have their voices heard and votes counted.”
In purging voter rolls in Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican who supports the practice, said he was merely "following the state and federal laws that require us to maintain accurate voter rolls."
Democrats, Civil Rights organizations and other opponents of the activity beg to differ and argue that voter purging is at best racist and unconstitutional, a disproportionate number of those impacted minority, and poor.
The United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit is a federal appeals court out of Cincinnati,
Ohio that has appellate jurisdiction over federal district courts in Michigan,
Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio, including the Federal District Court of the Northern
District of Ohio in Cleveland.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read
Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.
Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman,
editor-in-chief
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