Brent and Sweeney Urge Audit of Ohio Voter Purge

COLUMBUS— State Representatives Juanita O. Brent (D-Cleveland) and Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Westlake) today sent a letter to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose urging him to engage a third party firm to audit his recent voter purge. The purge revealed over 16,000 voters were initially mislabeled as ineligible to vote.

“Ohio’s purging of voters is nothing to be proud of. Every time there is a purge, we discover that Ohioans with the right to vote are wrongfully removed from our roll,” said Rep. Sweeney. “We should not mess with the people’s freedom to vote. This process needs transparency and an audit to help restore confidence in our elections.”

“The voters of my district may have had their constitutional right to vote taken away. Republican operatives targeted the people of Cleveland and East Cleveland with fake voting information and laughed about it,” said Rep. Brent. “Hopefully, they’re not laughing anymore after their felony convictions and a $5 Million fine. But we now need to take special precautions to protect those targeted voters from Ohio’s flawed voter purges.”

The letter to Secretary LaRose also requested information detailing the method his office used to conduct the purge. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: The letter to Secretary LaRose has been attached to this release.