Thousands of voter registrations that were set to be purged on Friday instead were removed from the chopping block as county boards of elections canceled the registrations of inactive voters and those who have moved across county lines.

In a directive Friday to Ohio's 88 county boards of elections, Secretary of State Frank LaRose ordered the purge to continue as scheduled, but with exceptions for several categories of voters whom voting rights groups have said did not meet the criteria for cancellation.

In July, county boards of elections sent last-chance notices to 235,610 voters, warning them that their registrations could be canceled on Friday. It was unclear on Friday how many registrations were saved by LaRose's directive, but the secretary is requiring counties to report all registrations they cancel by Sept. 13.

As of Friday morning, about 12,500 voters who received a last-chance notice already had taken some action to avoid being purged.

“There has never been a more transparent, more intensive review of Ohio’s voting rolls than what we have undertaken,” LaRose said in a prepared statement. “Because of our collaboration with outside organizations, the proper safeguards are in place to ensure any eligible voter will have the opportunity to have their voice heard.”

LaRose's directive prohibited county boards from purging:

• Voters who appeared on the list as a result of a vendor error in several counties. Ohio law allows the cancellation of registrations for voters who have not cast ballots for six years if they do not respond to a confirmation notice after the first two years or take other action. The Dispatch found more than 1,600 voters on the purge list who have voted since those confirmation notices were sent in 2015, including 110 who cast ballots in the 2018 mid-term election. LaRose's office has said that was the result of a vendor error.

• Registrations that were listed as “active” in the state’s database. Voting rights groups said thousands of voters were sent last-chance notices even though the state’s voter lookup site said they were active.

• Any registration that was not listed in "confirmation" status in county databases in 2015 after initial notices were sent.

• Registrations for which voting history is missing in county files from elections between May 7, 2013, and May 7, 2019.

• Voters who have moved to a new residence but remain in the same county where they are registered.

The directive also requires county boards to provide to the secretary of state a database of all voter registrations purged on Friday.

Voting rights groups and Democrats celebrated LaRose's directive as a victory for the thousands of registrations that were not canceled, but they continued sounding alarms over Ohio's process for purging its rolls of eligible voters.

"While LWVO strongly disagrees with the purge process, we applaud Secretary LaRose’s commitment to prevent the wrongful removal of tens of thousands of Ohioans who have either voted recently, got conflicting information, or have not moved out of county," said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, in a prepared statement.

Ohio cancels voter registrations under two separate but simultaneous processes. One uses the U.S. Postal Service’s change of address database to identify people who have moved. The “supplemental process” first notifies voters who have been inactive for two years that they have four more years to either cast a ballot or take other action to avoid being purged.

In July, LaRose directed county boards of elections to send last-chance notices to voters warning them that they would be purged on Sept. 6. Then-Secretary of State Jon Husted initiated the 2019 purge in 2015 when he told county boards to identify voters who had not voted for two years and to send them notices saying they had four years to take action to avoid being purged.

More than 1.7 million confirmation notices were sent to voters, with nearly 87 percent of them taking action before 2019 to avoid being added to the purge list.

The supplemental process was the subject of a drawn-out legal battle, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last summer that it is legal and the purges could move forward.

Earlier this year, about 265,000 registrations were canceled in the first purge since the Supreme Court's decision.

Any voters purged on Friday still will be able to cast provisional ballots and have their registrations restored after LaRose's office settled the remaining piece of a 2016 lawsuit challenging whether state notices satisfied federal law.

Since LaRose’s directive in July, voting rights groups and others have uncovered problems with thousands of registrations that were set to be purged. The Dispatch found more than 1,600 registrations that should not have been on the purge list. LaRose's directive said that was the result of a vendor's error in writing queries for 12 counties to identify which registrations should be canceled, according to a report on the investigation.

During a financial audit, LaRose’s office found discrepancies in four counties, including Franklin County where about 1,100 people mistakenly were sent last-chance notices.

Voting rights groups, including the League of Women Voters of Ohio, have raised questions about Ohio’s registration system and the purge list. It pointed out discrepancies with voter statuses between the state’s data, which is provided by county boards of elections, and the data counties provide on their own websites.

That led to the revelation that the status of more than 20,000 registrations in Franklin County was incorrect in the state’s database. None of those registrations were part of the purge list.

Problems with the data were discovered, in part, because LaRose compiled what he called the “Registration Reset List." LaRose directed county boards of elections to provide the names of voters that would receive last-chance notices and compiled them into a single list to be distributed to individuals or groups so that they could use the information to encourage those voters to take action to avoid being purged.

LaRose has said that he welcomed the scrutiny that came with compiling that list, which previous secretaries of state have not done, and that he was legally required to finish the process that started under Husted's regime.

Mike Brickner, Ohio director for All Voting is Local, said his organization supported LaRose's decision to extend exemptions for some registrations on the purge list but that they do not resolve "systemic issues with ways that the boards of elections are conducting their purges, how they’re identifying voters for purges and how they’re working with vendors to identify who should be on this purge list.”

rrouan@dispatch.com

@RickRouan