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0000017a-3b40-d913-abfe-bf44a4f90000Howard Wilkinson joined the WVXU news team as the politics reporter and columnist in April 2012 , after 30 years of covering local, state and national politics for The Cincinnati Enquirer. On this page, you will find his weekly column, Politically Speaking; the Monday morning political chats with News Director Maryanne Zeleznik and other news coverage by Wilkinson. A native of Dayton, Ohio, Wilkinson has covered every Ohio gubernatorial race since 1974, as well as 16 presidential nominating conventions. Along with politics, Wilkinson also covered the 2001 Cincinnati race riots, the Lucasville prison riot in 1993, the Air Canada plane crash at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in 1983, and the 1997 Ohio River flooding. And, given his passion for baseball, you might even find some stories about the Cincinnati Reds here from time to time.

96 voters challenged, but only 20 are active voters

The Hamilton County Board of Elections challenged 96 voters who apparently have incorrect addresses listed on their registration forms or list dwellings that no longer exist.

But only 20 of those voters are active voters; the rest have not voted in recent years.

Marlene Kocher, a volunteer from the Ohio Voter Integrity Project, a tea party organization looking into potential voter fraud statewide, submitted a list of 127 names to the board of elections - all west of Interstate 75 in the city of Cincinnati.

Some of the homes on the list provided by Kocher have been demolished.

Board officials investigated all the cases, and found that 31 of them had done nothing wrong.

The board voted to challenge 96 voters.

Hamilton County Board of Elections chairman Tim Burke said that a challenge means that if any of those persons show up at the polling places on election day, they will be challenged by poll workers and be given a provisional ballot to cast.

The board will then give those voters an opportunity to prove that they live at the addresses where they are registered.

The board will meet again on July 8 to consider other cases of potential voter fraud. So far, the board has referred 10 cases to the Hamilton County prosecutor. So far, three of them have been convicted of illegal voting so far.

Howard Wilkinson is in his 50th year of covering politics on the local, state and national levels.