DELAWARE — The Delaware County Board of Elections voted 3-1 Tuesday to uphold a right-to-vote challenge against 19 registered voters after determining each was also registered to vote in North Carolina.
The challenge was filed by Ostrander resident Lisa Cooper, a member of the Ohio Election Integrity Network (OEIN), who told board members she has been reviewing voter registration records for people registered in both Ohio and other states.
“Basically, we’ve decided to kind of go through some of the polls’ records and determine if we have people who are registered to vote in both Ohio as well as in another state,” Cooper told the board.
“I would like to have them removed from the Delaware County voting polls’ records. They can continue to vote in North Carolina, but I do not want them on the record for polls here.”
Democratic board member Peg Watkins cast the lone dissent in the 3-1 vote.
Board Director Karla Herron said election officials determined the challenge met Ohio’s legal requirements because Cooper properly completed Ohio Secretary of State Form 257 — the state’s official form for challenging a voter’s eligibility — for each of the 19 individuals.
In addition, Cooper is a qualified Delaware County elector and provided a legally-recognized basis for each challenge, she said.
Herron said she independently reviewed each voter record before Tuesday’s hearing and found non-Ohio voter registrations for 14 of the individuals, which were already on the board’s National Change of Address (NCA) list.
While the other five individuals were not on the NCA list, Herron said she found activity associated with their voter registration in North Carolina, and the Ohio registrations were not active.
Herron explained that Ohio typically removes voters through a multi-year maintenance process. Once someone is added to the NCA list, the board sends a confirmation notice. After four years, the person if flagged for removal from the county’s voter registration. Four years after that, the registration is eventually removed.
If the voter does not respond or participate in elections over the following years, the registration is eventually removed.
A successful voter challenge can accelerate that process if the challenge meets the proper requirements.
More challenges could follow
Cooper said Tuesday’s challenge represents only a portion of the cases OEIN has identified.
She said the organization compiled a list of 111 people believed to be registered in both Delaware County and North Carolina, but intentionally challenged only 19 voters first to better understand how the hearing process would work.
Cooper said OEIN intends to challenge the remaining 92 individuals’ right to vote in Delaware County through the board at a later date.
She said the organization identified the voters using publicly-available North Carolina government records, which was a significant reason why the board upheld the challenge on Tuesday.
2024 challenge shaped Tuesday’s vote
A similar OEIN right-to-vote challenge from 2024 involving 300 voters allegedly registered in Ohio and one of six other states: Texas, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina and Tennessee.
That challenge ended in a 2-2 deadlock.
While board members generally agreed that public government websites are legitimate sources for a voter challenge, they disagreed over whether information obtained from nongovernment websites met the same standard.
The board pointed to 60 North Carolina individuals, whom OEIN used public government sourcing for, as the only ones they felt comfortable upholding the challenge against.
However, the 2024 challenge cited voter registration information for the 240 other individuals from websites that were non-government sites.
Because the challenge combined voters identified through both government and nongovernment sources into a single filing, the board tied. Some board members voted to allow non-public government sourcing, and others did not.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose ultimately broke the tie, ruling that challenges supported by official government voter registration records could proceed, while those relying on nongovernment sources could not.
“To be clear, as demonstrated in the challenges related to North Carolina, the challengers in this matter need only to take the additional step of acquiring the relevant state’s official voter information to provide the Board with additional evidence on which to proceed,” LaRose said in a 2024 email to Herron.
Board members cited that guidance Tuesday in explaining why Cooper’s challenge met the state’s evidentiary standard.
Below is LaRose’s entire 2024 letter to the Delaware County Board of Elections that further explains his decision:
