Supreme Court Upholds Controversial Ohio Voter Purge Policy

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday that Ohio’s controversial voter purge process does not violate federal law, according to The Washington Post. The process allows the state to purge a voter from its rolls if they miss two subsequent federal elections, and do not respond to a request to confirm registration. The state was originally sued in 2015, according to USA Today, after it removed 7,515 Ohioans from its voter registry. Monday’s decision was spearheaded by the court’s conservative majority, and USA Today predicts that it will likely help Republicans win victories in the bellwether state, given that the party often benefits from lower voter turnout. The court’s liberal minority dissented as a bloc, with Justice Stephen Breyer writing an opinion stating that Ohio’s process “erects needless hurdles to voting of the kind Congress sought to eliminate.”