Voter registration among low-income Ohio citizens has increased ten-fold, following a court settlement to bring the state into compliance with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
The NVRA requires public assistance agencies to offer voter registration services to its clients, but until this year, Ohio public assistance offices had been neglecting this aspect of federal law, resulting in a 2006 lawsuit that was brought by voting rights groups, including Project Vote, Demos, and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
“The lawsuit was settled in November 2009,” according to a press release yesterday. “During the first six months of 2010, ODJFS offices averaged 17,00 registration applications per month. The volume of voter applications is nearly a ten-fold increase compared to the applications collected prior to the lawsuit, when Ohio agencies were registering only 1,775 per month.”
“The incredible turnaround in Ohio is evidence of their renewed commitment to low-income voters, and a testament to the potential of public agency registration nationwide,” said Nicole Kovite, director of the Public Agency Registration Project at Project Vote. “Our hope is that other underperforming states will not wait to be sued, but will follow Ohio’s example and comply with this important law.”
Read more at the Springfield News-Sun and the Associated Press.