Our Priorities
Wrongful voter purges. Rejected ballots in Black communities. Attempts to decrease the number of poll workers who serve on Election Day so that polling places aren’t prepared. These are just the latest threats to free and fair elections in Ohio. We can’t allow these attempts to roll back the right to vote.
In 2019, Ohio removed nearly half a million voters from the registration rolls, thousands of whom should have stayed on the rolls because they were actually eligible voters. Voter purges are an urgent threat to the right to vote. Even Ohio’s secretary of state admitted the process was flawed. And yet, the purges continue.
All Voting is Local Ohio was the first advocacy group to reach voters in the pipeline to be purged by texting and calling nearly 500,000 people in 2018 and 2019. Our Ohio team is on the ground with creative solutions and advocacy focused on three priorities:
- Fighting wrongful purges while also advocating for reforms we know can fix a broken system such as Automatic Voter Registration.
- Traveling statewide to train advocates to fight for better access to voting for people in Ohio’s jails and to watchdog local boards of elections for reductions in poll workers so that no voter has to wait in a long line because a polling place is not prepared.
- Empowering voters at Ohio’s Historical Black Colleges and Universities to know their rights at the polls. Students at Wilberforce and Central State universities disproportionately cast more provisional ballots and are more likely to have those ballots rejected.
News from Ohio
Civil Rights Groups: Vote by Mail Improvements Needed for Ohioans
CLEVELAND - Voting rights advocates urged Ohio election officials to improve the state’s flawed vote by mail system to ensure fair and safe 2020 elections -- particularly in light of Ohio’s upcoming election on April 28th which will be conducted almost entirely by mail, due to COVID-19 concerns. In today’s telephone press briefing, advocates from The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, All Voting is Local, and local voting rights organizations warned that voters may be disenfranchised unless Ohio lawmakers and election officials act now for future elections.
Press Call–Civil Rights Groups: Improvements Needed for Ohioans to Vote by Mail
CLEVELAND - On Wednesday, April 15, 2020 at 2:30 p.m. EDT, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and All Voting is Local will host a telephone press briefing with Ohio voting rights organizations to discuss the voter advocacy work taking place in advance of the state’s rescheduled primary election. The conversation will also cover what Ohio’s election officials need to do to ensure that all voters are heard through the ballot, now and in November. Ohio’s election was moved from March 17 to April 28 over concerns about COVID-19. The election will also now be held almost entirely by mail
Civil Rights Groups Announces “Turn Up Tuesdays” to Mobilize Communities to Fight for The Right to Vote
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and All Voting is Local, with its joint campaign And Still I Vote, launched Turn Up Tuesdays, a weekly, national call to action to mobilize voters and urge officials to ensure fair and safe elections in 2020. Kicking off in Ohio on Tuesday, April 14th, Turn Up Tuesday is dedicated to ensuring that the election process in upcoming primaries does not encounter the disarray that voters experienced in Wisconsin’s election on April 7th. Ohio’s primary election is currently scheduled for April 28, after a postponement in response to COVID-19 concerns.
In 2018, our campaign sent text messages to 384,444 voters in Ohio who were already in the pipeline to be purged. Of the voters we contacted, 62,479 people updated their registration and cast a ballot on Election Day. When Ohio’s secretary of state sent mailers to 264,516 voters in March of 2019, only 540 voters updated their registration.
