Also included in the challenge were the names of 15 voters who had an extra space included in their names (either they had two middle names or a hyphenated last name), which election officials called a “very minor” data entry error. The worry by the complainant, Gail Niederlehner, of West Chester Twp., was correcting the files would create duplicate voter registrations, said Butler County Board of Elections Director and Deputy Director, Nicole Unzicker and Eric Corbin.
They said that did not happen.
This was not the first time Niederlehner has challenged voter registrations, and not her last. According to her Aug. 27-filed challenge, she wrote, “The citizens of Butler County and across Ohio are closely watching upcoming elections. Boards of Elections will be unable to legally certify elections if voters are permitted to be counted by persons who lack the qualifications of an elector.”
Election officials said another challenge was filed Wednesday morning.
The process to remove voters from the county election rolls must go through the federal process outlined in the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which supersedes the more simple state process. Federal law states before a voter can be removed from the rolls, two federal elections must pass and multiple letters must be sent to attempt to correct or update the voter’s information.
Of the 11 voters presumed to have relocated to North Carolina, 10 are now in that process. The 11th has gone through that process and his Ohio voter registration was canceled on July 22, according to board of election documents. These 10 other voters have been placed in an inactive voter status and Unzicker said, “We have not found that anybody voted here and in North Carolina.”
And if they had, Corbin said they would be immediately referred to the Butler County prosecutor.
“Long story short, it appears, based on what the challenger is saying that these people are registered in Ohio and North Carolina. That’s not enough information for us to be able to remove someone from the voter rolls,” he said.
Unzicker said notices were sent to the 10 individuals challenged, a process that takes anywhere from four to five years.
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