HAMILTON COUNTY, Ohio — The deadline to register to vote is just days away, but one longtime Ohio voter is sending a warning to make sure you're still in the system. She said she checked the registration rolls and found her name missing.

What You Need To Know

  • Hamilton County voter To'Nia Caldwell said she votes every election, but couldn't find her registration online 

  • Caldwell ended up re-registering to vote after double checking

  • It's unclear how it didn't show up online, but the Hamilton County Board of Elections Director said her name is in the system and was never removed

When To’nia Caldwell looked up her voter registration, she thought she couldn’t vote. Her name wasn’t there. 

“It kind of blew my mind," said Caldwell, “I just said, OK, well, maybe it's the apostrophe in my name so I took that out and I put my name in again, and 'we can not find you' and then you know, I'm confused at this point," said Caldwell.

She said she was confused because she's an active Hamilton County voter, but she said she had to start back at square one and re-register to vote.

“I vote every election, every election, explain to me why my name was not registered, that didn't make any sense to me," said Caldwell. 

Spectrum News took her concerns straight to the Hamilton County Board of Elections office to get answers. 

“Other than entering it (her name) in incorrectly? I don't know, I haven't spoken with this voter, but I was able to to find her the very first time I looked on our website," said Sherry Poland, Hamilton County Board of Elections director, while explaining what could have happened.

Poland said they update the voter rolls every year, and remove voters who are inactive, moved or died, but she said Caldwell's name was never removed. 

Poland also says they have not heard of any other complaints, but she said anyone whose registration is in question can still vote on Election Day — just in a different way.

“If they can't find them, the voter is not turned away, they're issued a what we call a provisional ballot. It's actually the same ballot as all other voters, the only difference is that the voter doesn't scan their ballot at the polling place. It's put inside of a provisional envelope. and the front of that envelope is an affirmation of the voter," said Poland. 

But before that happens, there’s still time. The deadline to register is Oct. 7.

“We all need to check, we all need to be involved, we all need to get busy," said Caldwell.