uhh… can we stop calling Republicans hypocrits and call them what they are is criminals? Voter suppression is a crime.
Here is what happened. In Ohio only one specific form can be used to request absentee ballots. Jewish groups were sent the wrong form and they were rejected. Anti-abortion groups were also sent the wrong form and… well, that’s ok. Anti-abortion zealots can use the wrong form.
‘Hypocritical’ — Sec. of State LaRose apparently changes law to help Issue 1 supporters
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has seemingly changed the rules around Ohio law to benefit Issue 1 supporters after they made a mistake when sending out election information.
Groups around the state are having difficulties with Ohio’s new election law.
“I am very much for simplifying these procedures and making sure everybody gets counted,” anti-abortion advocate Austin Beigel said.
Although Beigel believes that everyone is responsible for making sure they are following the law when it comes to voting, he understands that sometimes aspects can be overcomplicated.
“We want this issue to be clear and people to have ease of access to their polls and to get their votes counted — so nobody doesn’t get their vote not counted on some ridiculous technicality,” he said. “But you’ve got to be correct.”
He supports Issue 1, the proposal to make it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution, which will be on the ballot this Aug. 8 special election.
But the change in how absentee ballots are requested has caused confusion for the Vote Yes on Issue 1 team.
Changes
Up until the beginning of 2023, there was no one specific form for requesting absentee ballots.
A new law signed in January that went into effect this April made a requirement of one specific form.
Mike West with the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections explained that the Cleveland Jewish News published an outdated form in June.
Sending in the wrong form caused dozens of readers to have their requests for mail-in ballots rejected by the Board.
“That’s what the law says, that you have to use one specific form,” West said.
Some more changes
A week later, supporters of Issue 1 made the same mistake, but they got a different result.
Within hours of the Vote Yes team admitting the error, LaRose sent a message to boards of elections that outdated ballot requests can be accepted now.
“If a voter submits an absentee ballot application on the Secretary of State’s previously prescribed form, the application may be accepted so long as the voter includes a valid form of ID required by H.B. 458,” the note from the state elections office said.
Jewish voting rights advocate Jodi Jackson explained people in her community should have the same opportunities.
“Coming from an area, part of the state in the county that skews more towards the ‘Vote No’ — ‘you can’t use it,'” Jackson said. “Then when it happened with the ‘Vote Yes’ — it just — it came across as being very hypocritical. Secretary LaRose is a leading proponent of ‘Vote Yes.'”