Ohio Set to Repeal Changes in Voting Law

05/16/12

On Tuesday, the Republican Governor of Ohio, John Kasich signed into law a bill that Democrats have been calling repressive and designed to pre-empt a repeal referendum. The new law repeals provisions of a voter law passed last year that barred counties from unsolicited mailings to voters and required poll workers to help voters who were aware that they were in the wrong location. Prior to the law, counties had been mailing unsolicited absentee ballots to voters.


However, the new law did not repeal the provisions of voter law that stopped in-person voting on the three days immediately before an election. This, of course, is in line with the wishes of the Democrats.

The hastily signed new law seems to be an attempt to avoid a referendum that could have caused Democrat supporters to turn out in greater numbers in the November election. Ohio, being a key state, such an event would have immensely enhanced the reelection prospects of Mr. Obama.

Jon Husted, the Republican Secretary of State of Ohio said in a statement, “With the law at the heart of the referendum … having been repealed, there is no longer a question to place before the voters.”

Pre-emptive strikes seem to have become standard American policy both in international and domestic politics.

The proponents of the original law, parts of which have been repealed by the new law, held that the restrictive provisions reduced the chances of voter fraud when combined with voter identification laws. However, critics hold otherwise.

In a meeting at Cleveland last week, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown told his supporters, “The overwhelming evidence … indicates that voter fraud is virtually non-existent, and that these new laws will make it harder for hundreds of thousands of elderly, disabled, minority, young, rural and low-income Americans to exercise their right to vote.”

However, Greg Moore, campaign director for Fair Elections Ohio, told the Reuters that they would keep pressing until a full repeal of the restrictive provisions take place. Moore said, “In 2008, 100,000 people, 19 percent of voters, voted in the three days before the election. We will keep pushing until we get a full repeal.”

Obviously, the referendum can still occur, given the statistics of Mr. Moore, and the fact that the new law still refrains to address the restriction that blocks people from voting on the three days prior to election.