Long gone but still registered

Ohio's Election Day rolls include people who couldn't - and shouldn't - vote

Sunday, October 24, 2004
Jon Craig
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Ohio's voter-registration rolls are dirty, containing more than 122,000 apparent duplicates as well as the names of people who moved out of state in the 1990s, a local murder victim and even a pair of accused terrorists.

Among supposedly eligible voters in Franklin County are suspected terrorists arrested for alleged plots to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge and a local shopping mall. As an imprisoned felon, one is ineligible to vote. The other, from Somalia, is not a U.S. citizen and thus broke state and federal laws when he registered in 1999, officials said.

Also on the voter rolls is an Upper Arlington man who moved to Washington state in the late 1990s, registered there, later moved to New York and now is registered there.

And the list includes a Columbus man's adult children who moved out of state in 1997 and 1993 - despite the father's attempt to get them removed.

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