The Hamilton County Board of Elections is warning approximately 100 persons suspected of voting from false addresses, including about 30 police officers from around the county: fix the problem or be dropped from the voting rolls.
The board voted unanimously Monday morning to send out the letters giving the persons 30 days to register under their correct addresses.
The police officers, for the most part, used their police stations as their voting addresses, according to a board of elections investigation.
The police officers will also be sent a form to allow their home addresses to be redacted from public view. Voter registration information is public record under Ohio law.
Ohio law allows police officers, prosecutors, corrections officers, parole office and firefighters to request that their home addresses be redacted from public view.
Registering to vote under a false address is a felony, punishable by up to one year in prison.
Among the 85 persons who will receive letters from the board are 22 people who travel almost constantly in recreational vehicles and who have been using the Family Motor Coach Association in Newtown as their voting address. They stop occasionally at the Family Motor Coach Association to have their RVs serviced and, in some cases, to pick up their mail.
The Family Motor Coach Association provided the board with information showing that they warn their customers not to use the Newtown address for voting purposes.
Others receiving letters are people who are using either post office boxes or mail boxes at private companies like UPS as their voting addresses.
Hamilton County elections director Amy Searcy said the board is still investigating another 15 police officers who appear to be using police stations as their voting addresses.
Both the two Republicans and the two Democrats on the board of elections approved sending out the letters.
“I would be in favor of sending letters to those people in these categories to the best addresses we have for them and tell them it is a violation,’’ said Hamilton County elections board chairman Tim Burke, a Democrat. “We give them a period of time to correct their registrations and if they do not do that, we take them off the rolls.”
