GOP leaders in the Ohio House fail to finance ballot-access plan
The Republican speaker of the Ohio House, Cliff Rosenberger, says his members are still looking at the idea of mailing unsolicited absentee-ballot applications to voters in 2016, and that there’s plenty of time to include the $1.25 million requested by Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted in the two-year budget.
Here’s a question for Rep. Rosenberger, R-Clarksville: What’s to look at? Husted, the chief elections officer, has said the absentee- ballot application mailings are part of his grand design to ensure a smooth election next year. Ohio is poised to be the state that decides the 2016 presidential contest, which means the press, grass-roots organizations, voting-rights advocates, the U.S. Justice Department and the national Democratic and Republican parties will be watching closely for any signs of voter fraud and, in particular, voter suppression.
Indeed, the state has been under the national microscope since the presidential election of 2004 when Democrats claimed that thousands of voters were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted because of the procedures instituted by then Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.
There were numerous independent investigations conducted, and all concluded that the election in Ohio was flawed and that voter suppression did occur.
Against that backdrop, you would think the Republican majority in the General Assembly would want to do whatever is necessary to ensure that the 2016 election takes place without drama.
HUSTED OBEYS LAW
What’s most disconcerting about the failure to include the secretary of state’s $1.25 million request in the House version of the biennium budget is the fact that he is just following the law.
Last year, the GOP majority in the Legislature sought to impose greater control over such mailings of absentee-ballot applications.
It passed a law that bars county elections boards from mailing unsolicited applications. It permits the secretary of state to send them for general elections, only if the Legislature appropriates the money for it.
Secretary of State Husted has twice mailed the unsolicited applications statewide using federal dollars from the Help America Vote Act. But his office says the federal money is not available for 2016. It cost about $1.5 million to send the applications in 2012 and nearly $985,000 in 2014.
Why, then, would Republicans in the House balk and offer the flimsy excuse of wanting to study the idea of unsolicited mailings of the applications?
Could it be that some in the GOP leadership are having second thoughts about opening up the electoral process to as many eligible voters as possible?
Voting rights organizations, led by Common Cause Ohio and the League of Women Voters of Ohio, have reacted harshly to the absence of the $1.25 million allocation in the House budget.
They expressed gratitude to Secretary of State Husted for his leadership on the issue and said there’s no reason for the General Assembly not to approve “this modest request.”