A pilot program targeting the accuracy of Ohio’s voter rolls is currently rolling out across the state.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose recently announced a new voter data integrity program that began in six counties and is now expanding statewide.
The program uses county-specific digital dashboards to identify voter registration discrepancies.
“These data entry discrepancies generally do not indicate fraud or wrongdoing, but they must be resolved in order to comply with our shared statutory responsibility to maintain the accuracy of our statewide voter registration database,” LaRose said.
As previously reported by The Center Square, LaRose spokesman Ben Kindel told The Center Square that the dashboard is another tool the local agency uses in its regular daily and weekly list management process.
Before the dashboard was created, local committees managed their own systems.
Kindel also said most voter registration errors occur when clerks accidentally press the wrong key on a keyboard when updating forms or improperly transcribe handwritten registration forms.
The dashboard gives county election boards access to a dashboard that shows the number of registration records that have been flagged for potential errors, such as incorrect characters in the name field, assumed birth dates, improperly high ages and improper birth and registration date combinations.
For years, information was manually entered into a state database from handwritten forms, leading to frequent errors.
“Many of Ohio’s registration records are entered into the system manually from handwritten forms, which can lead to data entry errors,” LaRose said. “This innovative tool will help all county elections offices solve these issues more effectively, and we look forward to building on the success of this pilot program as we prepare for the November election.”
The new dashboard requires election officials to check for and correct errors such as prohibited characters in names, false birth dates, pre-birth registrations and registrations for people under 17 years of age.
