By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (OH-11) (pictured), a Warrensville Hts. Democrat, sent a formal written request to Republican Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted  (pictured) last week seeking the number of registered voters, organized by county, who have been removed or purged from Ohio voter rolls since 2008.

The letter comes as Democratic President Barack Obama is in a neck and neck race with Mitt Romney, the nominee for the Republican party and a former governor of Massachusetts.

Ohio is a battleground state and prominent Republicans and Democrats that have a stake in the presidential election are not sitting on the side lines.

“The purging of voter rolls is yet another attack on the right of Americans to select their leadership and representatives in the local, state and federal houses of our nation,” said  Fudge.  “As we move closer to the observance of Independence Day, it is critically important that we continue to ensure that every eligible American continues to enjoy the freedoms that led to the founding of this great country, and for which so many lost their lives.”

Fudge's aggression on the issue is in conjunction with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), a federal law enacted by Congress to help ensure that accurate and current voter registration rolls are maintained.

States are required to perform general voter record maintenance due to NVRA.

Husted's office issued instructions to the election boards on April 18 on how to conduct the general voter records maintenance program as required by law. But  Fudge said last week that the information was not maintained by the secretary’s office or readily available in its entirety.

The congresswoman's letter to Husted also asks that he comply with her request for exposure of those purged from voter rolls in Ohio by Oct. 9, the last day of registration before the November general election.

The removal of voters from rolls without adequate safeguards to ensure accuracy has become the norm in so many states from coast to coast, say Democrats like Fudge, Ohio's only Black congressperson.

Fudge is a fighter and data show that Obama likely needs her help to win reelection.  Her largely Black 11 th congressional district includes parts of the majority Black major metropolitan city of Cleveland and a Black pocket of Akron, Oh., a city some 35 miles south of Cleveland.

Though a federal legislator charged with making federal law as a member of Congress, Fudge has taken on state legislators and statewide office holders like Husted.

She voiced opposition to unsuccessful attempts by the mostly Republican Ohio state legislature to pass laws before this year's election to silence the Black and poor vote with more stringent voting requirements including slashing the time period for early voting.

A former speaker of the Ohio House, Husted won election to secretary of state in 2010 as part of a Republican sweep of statewide offices that include, among others, Democratic give ups of the attorney general's office,  and governor, an office previously held by the Democrat Ted Strickland, and now by John Kasich.

Both Kasich and Strickland are  former U.S. Reps. from Ohio.

Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by telephone at 216-932-3114.