Election reform

5/23/2011

Two bills to change Ohio elections are making their way through the General Assembly. Along with overdue housekeeping and needed reform, the bills overreach in important ways.

The Senate bill sponsored by Sen. Mark Wagoner (R., Ottawa Hills) reasonably cuts the states too-long and unintended 35-day early voting window to 21 days by mail and 16 days in person.

But a House bill sponsored by Cincinnati Republicans Robert Mecklenborg and Louis Blessing would reduce early voting to 10 days, a too-short period when weekends and other days when voting isn’t permitted are subtracted.

Mr. Wagoner’s bill wisely incorporates a proposal first made by Secretary of State Jon Husted to allow voters with proper identification to register or change their addresses online. Ten other states already have successfully done so.

Unfortunately, it also includes Mr. Husted’s suggestion to prohibit county boards of election from sending out absentee ballots to every voter. A blanket ban makes no more sense than mandating that every county do so. That decision should be left to local boards.

The Senate bill would eliminate February and August special elections except under certain circumstances. This would save counties money, but it would make life more difficult for school districts and local governments. Cuts in state aid to schools and municipalities likely will increase their need to ask voters for help in the form of levies. Now is not the time to restrict their access to the ballot.

The Senate version also would prohibit the counting of provisional votes cast at the right polling place but at the wrong precinct table.

Those votes, as well as provisional ballots cast by voters who lacked adequate identification or had not updated their registrations, were central to Lucas County’s election woes last November that changed the outcome of two races and led Mr. Husted to remove the county’s top two elections officials.

The House bill goes too far, however, when it removes the requirement that poll workers tell voters when they are in the wrong line. No poll worker should knowingly allow a person to vote in the wrong precinct when the mistake can be easily avoided.

The House legislation also would move Ohio’s 2012 primary election from March to May, largely because of the need to remap the state’s legislative and congressional districts. That decennial obligation hardly seems sufficient cause to delay and potentially reduce the importance of Ohio’s presidential primary.

Mr. Wagoner’s bill also would allow boards of election to reduce the number of poll workers at voting locations with multiple precincts. The desire to save money is laudable, but adequate staffing must be maintained. And it would require people who use their Social Security number as identification to provide all nine digits. That could be an invitation to identity theft.

While the Senate bill still is in committee, the House version was passed last week, largely along party lines. Both need work before they become law.