Ohio Mistakenly Put 40,000 Legit Voters on Voter Roll Purge List
Voting rights groups in Ohio are being lauded for their oversight efforts which uncovered massive errors in the state's recent bid to remove hundreds of thousands of voters from its rolls. The inspection, which was carried out primarily by nonprofit volunteers, found that more than 40,000 voters were mistakenly included on the state's to-be-deleted list.
"It definitely showed that Ohio's registration system needs a major upgrade," Jen Miller, the director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, told Cheddar on Monday. "We can't be using a policy as severe as a purge when we can't even be sure that our purge lists are correct."
In an unusual move, this past August Ohio's Secretary of State Frank LaRose publically released a list of 235,000 voters that were set to be deleted from the state's registry. By reviewing the long spreadsheet, the League of Women Voters and several other groups uncovered gross inaccuracies, including the inclusion of Miller's name.
Yet Secretary LaRose, a Republican, has praised the process, saying his office undertook the most transparent review of Ohio's voting rolls to date. "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 said in a statement after revising the list.
The list maintenance process, as it's officially called, is legally mandated in Ohio and seeks to clear the state's system of deceased residents, inactive voters, or people who have moved out of state. Voter purging, however, has become a major issue nationwide as Republican-led initiatives in several states have sought to remove voters through controversial registration requirements, which critics say primarily target minority or Democratic voters.
Other oversight groups that participated in the review include the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, All Voting is Local, and the Fair Elections Center.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has reported that an estimated one million people have fled from Ukraine since Russia invaded. Christopher Boian, senior communications officer at UNHCR, joined Cheddar News to report on the current refugee crisis and what the world might expect if conditions continue to worsen. "We have planning figures that forecast as many as four million people could be forced to flee Ukraine," he said. "But that very much depends on how the conflict underway in that country at the moment unfolds in the days and possibly weeks ahead."
Under the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), corn-based ethanol has been mixed into gasoline sold at pumps in the U.S. since 2005, when a policy was enacted aimed at reducing emissions. Corn-based ethanol had been thought to be a relatively greener energy source compared to other biofuels, but now, a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports it may be actually worse for the climate than straight gasoline. Tyler Lark, an assistant scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Sustainability, joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell and discussed the pushback against the study. "Essentially when you need to produce more corn to meet the demand for use as ethanol as fuel, farmers respond and they switch more crops like soybeans and wheat into corn," Lark said. "They also bring more land into production, so things that used to be pasture grassland, and both those activities are associated with increased greenhouse gas emissions."
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday announced new sanctions against Russian oligarchs and others in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.
Christian Blauvelt, executive managing editor at IndieWire, joins Cheddar News to discuss the growing number of studios pulling content from Russia over Ukraine invasion.
Russian forces are battling for control of a crucial energy-producing city in Ukraine’s south and gaining ground in their bid to cut off the country from the sea.
In the past few years, Betthany Frankel has made a major name for herself as a philanthropist after founding the
BStrong initiative, which has provided relief to people impacted by natural disasters as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, BStrong is shifting its focus to Ukraine, raising millions of dollars in donations for those impacted by Russia's invasion. Bethenny Frankel, the founder of BStrong, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Bryan Lee, Chief Investment Officer at Blue Zone Wealth Advisors, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he elaborates on the volatility we've seen in the markets this week fueled by rising oil prices and the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Francesca Chambers, White House correspondent for McClatchy, joins Cheddar News to discuss all the topics President Biden has to juggle in his State of the Union address.
