The controversial culling of Ohio's voter rolls ended this week after the deletion of another 182,000 registrations, or 2 percent of the statewide total, in one of the nation's biggest electoral bellwethers. Most were purged only because they haven't voted in six years.
The process began three years ago with the targeting of 6 percent of the entries in the records. About half of those were removed in an initial round, in January, after a series of legal fights. The second round has gained new scrutiny because the state's 8 million voters will be courted intensely by both presidential campaigns. No Republican has ever won the White House without Ohio, which has 18 electoral votes.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, has emphasized an enormous housekeeping victory with the removal of duplicate registrations, the dead and people who have moved without telling the Postal Service.
But the Columbus Dispatch reports that, in the round that ended with September's close, seven out of every eight of the people purged were removed because they had not voted in at least half a dozen years. The newspaper's study was based on records from almost all 88 counties with the notable exception of Cuyahoga, the heart of the Cleveland metro area.
Under a state law, upheld by the Supreme Court last year, non-voter purges are automatic unless individuals ask to stay on the rolls when the state informs them they're about to be dropped.
After The Dispatch and voting rights groups unearthed problems with the lists of voters who received those notices, LaRose required every county board of elections to report the names and reasons for every purge. He also told them to retain people who moved within a county. In addition, under a lawsuit settlement, any purged voter may cast a provisional ballot in their last county of record.
Registered voters can check the state's database to see if their registrations were among those purged. They can re-register to vote for the November election before Oct. 7 at olvr.ohiosos.gov or at their local board of elections.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.