Use It or Lose It: Occasional Voters' Registration at Risk in Some States

When Larry Harmon tried to vote on a marijuana initiative in November in his hometown of Kent, Ohio, the 59-year-old software engineer found his name had been struck from the voter rolls.

 

Two hours south in Zanesville, restaurant worker Chris Conrad, 37, was also told he was no longer registered.

 

Both men later found out why: they had not voted often enough.

 

As the Nov. 8 elections loom, officials in Ohio have removed tens of thousands of voters from registration lists because they have not cast a ballot since 2008.

 

All U.S. states periodically cleanse their voter rolls, but only a handful remove voters simply because they don’t vote on a regular basis. And nowhere could the practice have a greater potential impact in the state-by-state battle for the White House than Ohio, a swing state that has backed the winner in every presidential election since 1960.