Ohio Republicans Seek to Restrict Early Voting

Maybe someone can explain to me the rationale behind restricting the ability of people to cast votes. I've never understood it, but sure enough, once again a bloc of politicians is trying to do just that, this time in Ohio where the Republican-controlled State House recently passed a bill to add redistrictions to early voting in the state.

The bill would eliminate a Golden Week window in which citizens can register to vote and cast absentee votes at the same time. It would push the start of early voting from 35 days before the election to 20 days and require absentee voters to fully complete ballot envelope statements to be counted. Election observers would also be allowed to watch voting at all times.

House Speaker Jon Husted, a Dayton-area Republican, told reporters the bill was merely intended to implement recent Supreme Court rulings as well as clean up elections law that [Secretary of State Jennifer] Brunner has said needs clarification.

One can wrap a change like this in any wrapping he desires, but it cannot mask the true intent behind laws like these: to keep voters from voting. If you look at voting numbers from this past November, early voters were often overwhelmingly Democrats. While there are various reasons for this voting behavior which I won't delve into here, it pretty clearly exists.

With Republicans taking a pounding in races across the country, particularly in Ohio where Obama carried the state and Democrats picked up three new congressional seats, it seems like the GOP majority in the legislature wants to try to change the rules to decrease a Democratic strength. That is what this law is about, plain and simple. Again, I see absolutely no reason to curtail early voting anywhere, so long as there protections for that boogeyman known as "fraud". Early voting allows people who might otherwise be busy on election to be allowed to go to the polls and cast a ballot. It provides key flexibility and thus increases turnout. I concede that turnout in Ohio actually dropped this past year in comparison to 2004, but that does not establish that early voting was either a failure or unnecessary. Such an argument would be a partisan pretext.

This bill is a foolish and nakedly political piece of legislation. Governor Ted Strickland has not yet promised a veto of this bill, but hopefully he will.