WASHINGTON — Under the administration of President Barack Obama, the U.S. Department of Justice backed civil rights groups' legal challenge of Ohio’s decision to remove thousands of inactive voters from voter rolls.

But under the administration of President Donald Trump, the department has switched sides in the case.

Justice Department attorneys filed a 61-page brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday siding with Ohio’s decision to purge the inactive voters, flipping the government's position months before the nation’s high court is to take up the case.

The case, Husted v. Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute, focuses on the state's supplemental process, which cancels voter registrations even if the voter in question has not moved and is still eligible to vote.

Here’s how it works: Voters who have not cast a ballot in two years are mailed a notice asking that they confirm their registration. If the voters do not respond and do not cast a ballot in the four years after that, they’re automatically removed from the rolls.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted's office has removed 465,000 deceased voters and 1.3 million duplicate registrations from Ohio's voter rolls in recent years.

The supplemental process was struck down in September 2016 by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that Husted violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 by removing voters from the rolls solely because they had not voted.

The Justice Department argued in its brief that Ohio gives voters an opportunity to respond and remain on the rolls. They argue that federal law does not prohibit states from contacting registered voters who have failed to vote to determine whether they still live at the address on their registration.

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Mike Brickner, a senior policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, called the federal government’s decision to support Ohio “a very disappointing reversal.”

He said that while an injunction was in place after the 6th Circuit’s 2016 ruling, 7,500 people who might otherwise have been kicked off the rolls were able to vote in the November presidential election.

The Justice Department has defended voter rights for the past 20 years, Brickner said.

“This is a major about-face for the Department of Justice after decades of consistently weighing in on cases that have to do with the National Voter Registration Act and whether or not voters can be purged from the voter rolls,” he said.

U.S. League of Women Voters President Chris Carson said in a statement: "By changing their position in the 2016 Ohio voter purge, the Justice Department is playing politics with our democracy and threatening the fundamental right to vote. We have seen this administration lay the groundwork to roll back voting rights, but the latest brief in the pending Supreme Court case takes a dangerous step further: disenfranchising eligible voters."

Husted defended the process, saying it has been in place under both GOP and Democratic administrations in Ohio.

"This case is about maintaining the integrity of our elections, something that will be harder to do if elections officials are not able to properly maintain the voter rolls," he said in a statement.

Ohio was backed by a brief signed by 17 state attorneys general who said their states "believe this process and others like it are accurate, cost-effective and permissible means of carrying out their" obligations under federal law.

The Supreme Court is to take up the case in its new term that begins in October.

jwehrman@dispatch.com

@jessicawehrman