Is Ohio’s new voting law a solution in search of a problem?
Last month while you were sleeping, the Ohio Legislature’s Republican supermajority passed House Bill 458, a new law that requires voters to show state-issued photo identification while shrinking the window for mail-in voting, and limiting each of the state’s 88 counties to a single drop box.
Voting rights activists say the law is a bid to make it harder to vote by imposing hurdles for qualification while reducing access and opportunity.
Utility bills, and other government documents will no longer be accepted. It also limits curbside voting, which directly impacts people with disabilities; shortens the time for returning ballots or fixing errors in them; increases the absentee ballot request deadline from three days to seven days before the election, and reduces the deadline for absentee ballots from 10 days after Election Day, to 7:30 p.m. on the day of the election.
Though the law requires voters to furnish state-issued IDs, identification issued to college students by public universities, and those issued to veterans by county agencies, may not be accepted.
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Proponents of the law say it will reduce the potential for fraud, even as their former house speaker goes on trial for racketeering and bribery.
If election integrity is really a concern, Republican legislators wouldn’t be ignoring the courts, which have tossed out election maps that look like they were drawn by Picasso on a bender.
Two years ago, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced that his review of the 2020 election found no evidence of voter fraud.
So, it poses the question: Why fix a system that isn’t broken?
Why shrink the window for absentee voting and all but eliminate drop boxes, which have been successfully used in other states for years?
Why reject state-college IDs as an acceptable form of identification? It wouldn’t be because most college-age voters tend to support Democrats, would it?
If the Legislature really wants to improve voting, why not pass a law that automatically registers every Ohioan when they turn 18?
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It has been argued that requiring a voter to furnish a state ID is hardly a burden, given that residents over 17 can acquire one for free and surveys show that the majority of Ohioans support requiring voters to show photo identification. But critics contend that applying for a state-issued ID is not that easy and can even be confusing.
Let’s not be virgins, here. From poll taxes, to suffragettes, to Bloody Sunday, creating obstacles to the vote is as American as a pickup truck.
House Bill 458 was passed knowing that it makes voting a little bit harder — not better.
The question is, what are those who feel the latest law creates more hurdles going to do about it? If it is believed that the complaints are valid, churches, student groups, and civil-rights organizations should be working to inform people of the changes, and to ensure that everyone who needs a state-issued ID gets one.
That said, those who can vote, must do so. Poor voter turnout gives tacit permission to those in power to do whatever they want. The doings of state government tend to get ignored because it isn’t “sexy,” though state laws are more impactful to our daily lives than Joe Biden’s unforced errors and George Santos’ latest hijinks.
Plus, we owe it to those forebears who did the hard and dangerous work of securing the right.
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A battle waged decades ago keeps reemerging to threaten new generations. When others dare to make voting harder, such schemes must be defeated at the ballot box.
Charita M. Goshay is a Canton Repository staff writer and member of the editorial board. Reach her at 330-580-8313 or [email protected]. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP
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