While some states are fighting back against U.S. Justice Department requests for access to their voter registration lists and other election information, Ohio has begun the four-year process of ensuring voter rolls here are as clean as they can be.

Among the states that have received requests from the federal government so far, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Wisconsin have simply said “no.” Officials there say they have questions about the legality of the requests and how the information will be used.

After all, state (and, really, county) elections officials are responsible for their own voter rolls, not someone in Washington, D.C. As one piece in the Ohio Capital Journal put it, “Power over voter registration lists is the power to shape the electorate.”

It is a mark of the importance of

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