CLEVELAND, Ohio - If you're an infrequent voter, you could be in danger of being targeted for removal from the voting list and forced to re-register before voting in future elections.

Check this database to find if your status is in jeopardy.

to load this Caspio

Some mobile users may need to use this link instead.

The U.S. Supreme Court has given the OK for Ohio to resume purging of voter registration lists.

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 11 ruled Ohio's method of purging voters is legal.



What this means is that people who go six years without voting could be removed and prevented from voting. Even a provisional ballot would not be counted, as they would end up being invalid.

Six years might sound like a long time between voting. But a lot of people, for whatever reason, vote only in presidential election years. For those voters, missing just one presidential election could be enough to lose status as a registered voter, depending on the timing of a purging cycle.



For reference, 5.6 million Ohioans cast votes in each of the last two presidential elections. But in last November's off-year election, only 2.4 million Ohioans voted, and just 3.1 million people voted in Ohio's last gubernatorial election, Secretary of State records show.

Ohio's two-step process

Under Ohio law, notices are mailed after two years of inactivity. This hasn't been done since 2016, because of the court case that was just resolved by the Supreme Court. The timetable for resuming the process is not yet set.



People receiving the notice must do one of two things to remain eligible. Confirm where they now live, or vote sometime within the next four years.



Step 2



A second notice does not go out.

So if you missed the first notice, that's the last warning. It's time to take action.

If you don't vote within the next four years - six years total - or you don't tell election officials where you now live, you may purged from the voter registration list after November.



The Secretary of State will not purge anyone before this November's election, because the Supreme Court ruling came too late under laws that set minimum time frames for removing people before elections, a spokesman said.

What you should do



Check to find if your name is in the database above. If your name appears, your status will be explained, as well as what needs to be done.



There are 1.9 million people listed in the database. Some haven't haven't voted for two years and have not yet received a notice, but could receive a notice in the future. Others have already received notices.

Separately, the state removes names when deaths are confirmed, or for other reasons when it is determined that the voter no longer lives at the address listed.

How the list was compiled

The list of 8 million Ohio registered voters as of June 18 was reviewed by cleveland.com.

Those flagged in the registration files as receiving a notice and not responding were placed in the searchable database. This group numbers 1,042,956.

Another 835,884 were added, who, based on the records, have not voted in the last two years and have been registered at least that long.

These people would be in line to receive notices if the Secretary of State immediately sent out a new batch. It is not known yet when those mailings will resume.

Keep in mind, however, Ohio's voting registration lists sometimes contain errors. For example, thousands of people are listed as being born before 1904, many in the 1800s, yet the oldest known living Ohioan was born in 1904.



If you have lingering concerns about your registration status and voting record, check with the Board of Elections in your county.

Are politics at play?

It's well documented that Republicans do better in Ohio when turnout is lower, so anything that reduces the number of potential voters is sure to gain criticism from Democrats.

Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted has in official statements defended the need to purge voters under Ohio laws: "Maintaining accurate and up-to-date voter rolls is the responsibility of elections officials because the law requires it of us and the voters expect us to do it."

Fueling some of the counter argument is which voters may be most likely to be removed from the rolls, based on the number of people who have received notices or haven't voted for two years.

Ohio's congressional districts are nearly equal in size. But the four districts represented by Democrats rank first, fourth, sixth and seventh among the 16 districts for voters who haven't responded to previous notices or haven't voted in the last two years, cleveland.com found.

Thirty percent of those in danger are from Ohio's three largest counties: Franklin (230,996), Cuyahoga (187,105) and Hamilton (144,815). This is roughly the same as the share of the state's population for the three counties combined.

Factors for some areas being higher that others could include where there are more occasional voters, high college student populations (student addresses change frequently) or where there are a high percentage of renters (renters are likely to move more often than homeowners).

Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner.