About 2 million inactive Ohio voters will remain eligible to vote — but not registered as voters — under a complicated new directive issued by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted this week to implement a judicial order.

Mr. Husted distributed the directive to Ohio county boards of elections telling them that recently purged voters should be allowed to vote by provisional ballot if they show up and have valid identification.

A provisional ballot is a paper ballot that is held in a sealed envelope with the voter’s identification. If the identification information is verified by the elections board staff over the next 10 days, the provisional ballot is counted.

Husted spokesman Joshua Eck said the order does not require the reinstatement of any removed voters. It allows unregistered voters who were removed from the polls under the so-called “supplemental process in 2011, 2013, or 2015.” Roughly 2 million voters, 400,000 of them last year, have been purged from the rolls since 2011.

Initially, Mr. Husted warned that reinstating the purged voters would result in the names of some dead people going back on the rolls. Mr. Eck said the ruling allowing purged voters to vote provisionally satisfied Mr. Husted.

“His primary concern was that there not be a haphazard requirement that registrations be reactivated without regard to whether or not the person was dead or alive and still living in Ohio. Those concerns were addressed in the order, so he does not plan to appeal,” Mr. Eck said.

Ohio cancels the registrations of voters for whom they receive a national change of address notice, a death notice, or a notice that the voter is incarcerated or was declared incompetent.

Additionally, the state has the supplemental process of removing voters who failed to vote in two federal elections and then failed to respond to a mailing asking them to confirm that they still live at the address on record. The Lucas County elections board purged nearly 30,000 voters a year ago under that same supplemental process.

A federal suit filed by the A. Philip Randolph Institute and the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless contended that removing voters for failure to vote was illegal.

A federal appeals court agreed that the voters must be reinstated and sent it back to the U.S. District Court in Columbus to fashion a remedy.

Judge George Smith’s remedy does not require that all the voters be reinstated, but that if they present themselves at a polling place to vote, their vote can be counted if they show that they still live in the county where they originally registered.

Mr. Husted’s directive orders the county boards of elections to purchase 20 percent more provisional ballots and envelopes in case some of the purged voters show up to vote.

Contact Tom Troy: tomtroy@theblade.com or 419-724-6058 or on Twitter @TomFTroy.

First Published October 21, 2016, 4:00 a.m.