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Starting Ohio purge, GOP elections chief helps search for those still eager to vote

Ohio is moving ahead with its second purge of the voter rolls this year, though not before the state's new Republican top elections official helps in a search for people who haven't voted in a while.

Still, Democrats say the purge will wrongly disenfranchise too many – mainly poor people, minorities and students.


Last year the Supreme Court upheld an Ohio law requiring the removal from voter lists of those who have not cast ballots in at least six years or responded to "last chance" notices sent by mail. About 3 percent of the state's 8 million registered voters were dropped in January, and on Monday the elections boards of all 88 counties mailed new last-chance notices to another 3 percent, or almost 236,000 people, setting a Labor Day deadline for updating voter information.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose has promised to turn over the roster of affected voters this week to the League of Women Voters and several religious leaders who say they want to search for voters and encourage them to re-register.

"We want to try to find everyone that we can," he told the Columbus Dispatch, although he predicted most on the lists were duplicate entries, dead or no longer living in the state.

LaRose is also vowing to press the state legislature to make Ohio the 19th state with automatic voter registration, under which all eligible people are added to the voter rolls whenever they get a driver's license or otherwise interact with a state agency. But it seems unlikely that will happen by next year, when Ohio's 18 electoral votes will be a prime target of both presidential candidates.

Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who was secretary of state in the 1980s, and several state legislators urged a lenient approach to culling the voter rolls in the interim. Brown is pushing legislation, which stands little chance in the GOP Senate, that would make it illegal for a state to use "failure to vote or respond to a state notice as reason to target" voters for removal from the rolls.

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Trump Shows That Loyalty Is All That Matters to Him

Guests in the audience await the arrival of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence during the Federalist Society's Executive Branch Review Conference at The Mayflower Hotel on April 25, 2023, in Washington, D.C.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images/TNS

Trump Shows That Loyalty Is All That Matters to Him

Last week, the Court of International Trade delivered a blow to Donald Trump’s global trade war. It found that the worldwide tariffs Trump unveiled on “Liberation Day” as well his earlier tariffs pretextually aimed at stopping fentanyl coming in from Mexico and Canada (as if) were beyond his authority. The three-judge panel was surely right about the Liberation Day tariffs and probably right about the fentanyl tariffs, but there’s a better case that, while bad policy, the fentanyl tariffs were not unlawful.

Please forgive a lengthy excerpt of Trump’s response on Truth Social, but it speaks volumes:

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U.S. Strikes Iran Nuclear Sites: Trump’s Pivot Amid Middle East Crisis

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Dan Caine discusses the mission details of a strike on Iran during a news conference at the Pentagon on June 22, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia.

(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

U.S. Strikes Iran Nuclear Sites: Trump’s Pivot Amid Middle East Crisis

In his televised address to the nation Saturday night regarding the U.S. strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump declared that the attacks targeted “the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.” He framed the operation as a necessary response to decades of Iranian aggression, citing past attacks on U.S. personnel and Tehran’s support for militant proxies.

While those justifications were likely key drivers, the decision to intervene was also shaped by a complex interplay of political strategy, alliance dynamics, and considerations of personal legacy.

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What if We Fired the Parties?

"They want us divided sign" that represents partisanship among democrats and republicans.

Getty Images, Jena Ardell

What if We Fired the Parties?

Like many Americans, I have been increasingly disappointed by the candidates promoted by political parties because they tend to back candidates who are ultimately focused on personal gain and/or only advancing issues predetermined by party priorities while moving further away from responding to the needs of their constituents. According to The Guardian, in the 2024 election, the number of eligible voters who did not cast their ballot is more than the total of those who voted for either of the party candidates. So, maybe the real issue is that our political party system just isn’t working for most Americans anymore. Assuming this is even partially true, what if, instead of just complaining about the parties or holding our noses and voting for the "lesser evil" every November, we actually fired the parties—took away their grip on our democracy and built something better.

For decades, we've been told we only have two choices. But more and more Americans don't feel truly represented by either major party. We're exhausted by the noise, the blame games, the endless culture wars that solve nothing and only serve to increasingly marginalize portions of our citizenry. Americans want real solutions on housing, healthcare, education, wages, and the future we're leaving for the next generation. And we're not getting them. So, maybe it's time to ask a radical but necessary question: What if the problem isn't just the candidates but the political party system that keeps producing them?

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The Medical Community Tells Congress That Telehealth Needs Permanent Federal Support
person wearing lavatory gown with green stethoscope on neck using phone while standing

The Medical Community Tells Congress That Telehealth Needs Permanent Federal Support

WASHINGTON–In March 2020, Stephanie Hendrick, a retired teacher in Roanoke, Virginia, contracted COVID-19, a virus that over 110 million people in the U.S. would contract over the next couple of years.

She recovered from the initial illness, but like many, she soon began experiencing long COVID symptoms. In the early months of the pandemic, hospitals and medical centers prioritized care for individuals with active COVID-19 infections, and pandemic restrictions limited travel and in-person treatment for other medical conditions. Hendrick’s options for care for long COVID were limited.

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