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Ohio secretary of state ‘open’ to expanding weekend early-voting days, but happy with current structure
YOUNGSTOWN
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said he is “open” to discussing expanding the number of weekend in-person early-voting days, but is satisfied with the current schedule.
As it’s been for the past few years, the only weekend early-voting days are the Saturday and Sunday before the election. But LaRose said there are plenty of opportunities to vote early including about four weeks of weekday in-person voting as well as voting by mail.
When asked Monday by The Vindicator about expanding that, LaRose said, “We have to balance that out with the burden it places on county boards of elections, and there’s a cultural question. In certain parts of the state, people don’t vote on Sunday, but in other places, it has been embraced, and that’s a good thing. We need to balance that out, but the weekend voting we have right now is good. As far as an expansion of that, that is a conversation we’d have to have with our county commissioners and elected officials and the Legislature.”
LaRose, a Republican, spent Monday in the Mahoning Valley, including a stop at the Mahoning County Board of Elections in Youngstown to tour the office.
LaRose said his office has mailed about 270,000 registration forms to those who were removed from voter rolls for infrequent voting. He said most of the voters were removed because they died or moved.
“For those individuals that may have been removed that are just infrequent voters, we want to see them get involved again, so we mailed out a voter registration form to everyone” because “we want to see them get registered and stay as a participant in our voting process,” he said.
LaRose also thew his support behind a bill introduced by state Sen. Michael Rulli of Salem, R-33rd, to require candidates for local offices – on the county, city, township and village levels – to file campaign finance reports electronically rather than in paper form at county boards of elections. LaRose, who unsuccessfully introduced similar legislation twice while serving in the Legislature, said the proposed requirement, which is identical to what is required of those running on the state level, would bring greater transparency to local candidates.