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
Ohio campaign helps two HBCUs get rid of voting barriers
For years, Americans have showed up to polling places on Election Day to make their voices heard. But a process that should be simple often comes with long lines, headaches, miscommunication and voters being turned away.
Needs Improvement: Barriers to the Ballot at Ohio’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities
An analysis of voting data from 2018 reveals troubling trends in low turnout, provisional ballot rejection and registration problems. But these barriers are not insurmountable. All Voting is Local together with students and community partners, propose a robust and sustained investment in voter education and poll worker recruitment and training to solve these problems so all students can cast a ballot that counts.
National Voting Rights Organization Launches Campaign with Ohio HBCUs to Tackle Barriers to Voting for Students
WILBERFORCE, OH—All Voting is Local joined students from Central State and Wilberforce universities, Ohio’s two Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), to announce a year-long voter empowerment campaign to tackle barriers to voting for students.
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.
