A vendor who works with county boards of elections mistakenly flagged more than 1,600 people for purging from the rolls of eligible voters, marking the second time in three weeks that problems have surfaced with the list of registrations that could be canceled next week.

A Dispatch analysis found that 1,641 voters who cast ballots after the 2015 primary election — an action that should have prevented them from being placed on a potential purge list — were sent last-chance notices this summer, warning that their registration could be canceled Sept. 6 if they didn't act.

Get the news delivered to your inbox: Sign up for our politics newsletter

That includes 110 people who voted as recently as the 2018 mid-term election.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office said it discovered problems around Aug. 16 in counties that use DIMS, a system now serviced by Election Systems & Software based in Omaha, Nebraska. Using a more recent voter list, LaRose’s office found 1,461 registrations that should not have been flagged for cancellation.

The Dispatch found 402 voters on the list who had voted since 2015 in Fairfield County and 219 in Wayne County near Wooster. Clermont County in suburban Cincinnati had the most at 681, and there were 181 in Hancock County near Findlay. Ten other counties among the 15 using DIMS had 71 or fewer improperly flagged registrations.

Statewide, only seven improperly flagged voters came from counties not served by DIMS, software that originally was supplied by Diebold but now is serviced by ES&S.

Officials from the Fairfield Board of Elections will meet with ES&S on Tuesday morning to learn more about what happened, said board Director Jane Hanley.

"The script that was provided to us did not pull the proper information," she said. "Those people who had voter activity after the 2015 date will not be canceled on the sixth (of September)."

It's too early to say whether the error will affect the county's contract with ES&S, she said.

"We all just want to get to the bottom of it and make sure it never happens again. We just want to make it right."

LaRose’s office is conducting an investigation into how the company could have improperly flagged voters as inactive, and it has vowed that the registration of any voter improperly placed on the list will not be canceled.

“ES&S has been made aware of this concern and is in the process of working with the counties and the Ohio Secretary of State's office to ensure that all voter data is accurate,” a company spokeswoman said in an email. Company officials did not submit to an interview or answer follow-up questions.

LaRose said discovering the problem is proof that his plan to assemble a statewide list of voter registrations facing cancellation from Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections is working. But some voting rights groups say it underscores the problem of allowing each of those counties to manage its own voter rolls without oversight.

“We still have more questions than answers and we are concerned that individuals will be removed from the rolls who should not be,” said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. “Eligible voters will be wrongfully removed if the secretary goes forward with this process.”

A 2015 directive from then-Secretary of State Jon Husted, now lieutenant governor, told county boards of elections to identify voters who had not participated in any election beginning with the 2013 primary and through the 2015 primary. Those voters were mailed notices essentially saying they had four years to vote or update their status with the elections board.

That four-year period from 2015 has now expired, leading to the latest prospective purge. LaRose has said he is legally obligated to finish that process.

Ohio actually conducts two separate but simultaneous processes to clean up its voter rolls. A U.S. Postal Service database of individuals whose addresses have changed is used to flag voters who have moved. As with inactive voters, those who have moved within Ohio get notices warning them that they have four years to participate in an election or update their registrations if they want to maintain their eligibility to vote.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that Ohio’s process is constitutional after voting rights groups sued to stop the purges.

Last-chance notices went to 235,610 registrants in July, telling them they had until Sept. 6 to respond to the notice or update their registrations. As of Friday morning, 10,424 voters had taken action to avoid being purged.

Before this year, though, the Secretary of State’s office did not compile a list of voter registrations that could be purged from the rolls. LaRose required county boards of elections to submit the compilation to his office, which produced a list that individuals and groups could use to contact those listed and encourage them to take action.

The list has put a spotlight on problems those 88 county boards of elections have had maintaining their own voter rolls. During a financial audit earlier this summer, LaRose’s office found discrepancies in four counties, including 1,128 registrations that should not have received a last-chance notice in Franklin County because those voters had signed an election petition.

After The Dispatch questioned the problems in Franklin County, the board of elections found another 120 voters who were improperly purged earlier in 2019.

LaRose’s office discovered the latest problems after the League of Women Voters of Ohio provided data raising other questions, triggering a broader review. The Secretary of State disclosed the problems to The Dispatch after reporters presented their own findings last week.

“This speaks to the concerns that we have raised recently and for many years now that this supplemental process is not done uniformly across the state,” said Mike Brickner, Ohio director for All Voting Is Local. “The math is very fuzzy. Every county does different processes.”

LaRose's office has said it is focused on correcting errors before the Sept. 6 purge and does not have plans to look for problems with voter cancellations conducted under previous administrations.

The Republican has advocated for “modernizing” Ohio’s voter registration system, working with two state lawmakers to introduce bipartisan legislation last week that would require the registrar of motor vehicles or deputy registrars to collect information to register or update the registration of eligible voters unless the individual opts out.

“The law requires me to carry out this antiquated, analog process, but in today’s digital world I know that we can do better,” LaRose said in a prepared statement. “ We need to get our Voter Verification and Registration legislation passed so we can modernize the system, have accurate voter rolls and reduce the risk of voter fraud.”

rrouan@dispatch.com

@RickRouan

dcaruso@dispatch.com

@DougCaruso