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BumRushDaShow

(141,332 posts)
Wed Sep 4, 2024, 09:51 AM Sep 4

Ohio Sec. of State LaRose proposes eliminating ballot drop boxes, changes rules ahead of election

Source: Ohio Capital Journal

September 4, 2024 4:50 am


Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has asked Statehouse leaders to create a law eliminating ballot drop boxes after a court ruled that people with disabilities should have more opportunities to vote. Using his own powers, he put more steps in place for voters to use drop boxes ahead of the November election.

Nearly four million Ohioans voted last November, with 1 in 4 people voting absentee, according to state data. State Sen. Bill DeMora, D-Columbus, worries that LaRose’s new proposals will make that much more difficult to do. “Working people work — they go home and they vote and they drive it to the board of elections knowing that the law already says it has to be a secure location, it has to be monitored,” DeMora said.

LaRose issued a directive Friday that requires someone delivering an absentee ballot for another person to sign an attestation that they are complying with state law — which means they must go into the board of elections to sign the form. “As a practical matter, this means that only a voter’s personal ballot may be returned via drop box,” LaRose ordered. The secretary also sent a letter to legislative leaders asking them to either drastically cut down who can submit an absentee ballot to a drop box or eliminate the use of drop boxes entirely.

DeMora called it ridiculous. “It hurts working people and working families and college students — the people, of course, who don’t vote for Republicans,” DeMora said. “They make it tougher for people to vote, make it tougher for people to take their own spouse’s ballot to the one box in the county that they’re allowed to have to drop off their ballots, anything they can do to make it tougher to vote.”

Read more: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2024/09/04/ohio-sec-of-state-larose-proposes-eliminating-ballot-drop-boxes-changing-rules-ahead-of-election/

17 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Botany

(72,348 posts)
8. Yup!
Wed Sep 4, 2024, 10:26 AM
Sep 4

Paul Weyrich:

How many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome: good government? They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.

Unwind Your Mind

(2,143 posts)
4. I'm married to someone disabled
Wed Sep 4, 2024, 10:05 AM
Sep 4

He’s blind, certainly can’t go in the booth by himself

We get absentee ballots, fill them out at home and then I take them to the ballot box conveniently located between the library and our dog park. I guess that’s a terrible problem?

California is just awful, I tell you

We all know that suppressing the vote is their real motivation. Sigh…

LauraInLA

(1,245 posts)
14. I live in and love CA, too! Have you all ever considered mailing in your ballots? Or are you in
Wed Sep 4, 2024, 01:54 PM
Sep 4

one of the redder areas where you don’t trust they’ll arrive/be counted?

Unwind Your Mind

(2,143 posts)
16. No, I don't worry about that
Wed Sep 4, 2024, 02:31 PM
Sep 4

We just usually wait until close to election day

We used to go in to the polls and drop them off but that box is so convenient

Botany

(72,348 posts)
5. Republican ideas and people are so unpopular that they have to make it hard to vote.
Wed Sep 4, 2024, 10:07 AM
Sep 4

Last edited Wed Sep 4, 2024, 10:48 AM - Edit history (1)

I hope I live long enough to see the yolk of unAmerican Republican shits removed
from Ohio. Btw LaRose no doubt claims to be a Christian. As does Lt. Governor
Jon Husted.

If we had a clean election Ohio would go blue this fall on the women and anti
Trump voters alone. Ohio is very dirty. The speaker of the house is in jail for
his part in taking 65 million in bribes from first energy.

CrispyQ

(38,110 posts)
7. It's undemocratic that it's easier to vote in Colorado than almost any other state in the country.
Wed Sep 4, 2024, 10:25 AM
Sep 4

There are a few other states & it's just unfair that it's so easy for us to cast our ballots & not so easy for the rest of you. Why isn't this a bigger issue? All our elections are vote-by-mail, but you can still vote in person if that's what you prefer. You can even register to vote on Election Day in Colorado. Of course you'll get a provisional ballot but those ballots are counted.

Old Crank

(4,555 posts)
10. In California the statement is on the envelope for the ballot.
Wed Sep 4, 2024, 11:32 AM
Sep 4

You sign it and give it to the person.

No problems there.

This idea is BS and pure voter suppression.

FakeNoose

(35,491 posts)
13. The Ohio law permits mailing ballots via US Postal Service, so there's that
Wed Sep 4, 2024, 12:58 PM
Sep 4

There were instances in North Carolina a couple years ago, people who collected ballots from shut-ins and elderly - DID tamper with the ballots before they delivered them to the polls. It was Repukes doing the defrauding, of course.

werdna

(926 posts)
15. This applies to dropping off ballots of neighbors, friends, strangers.
Wed Sep 4, 2024, 02:23 PM
Sep 4

"If you return your ballot to the board in person, or if a near relative* delivers it for you, the board of elections must receive your ballot no later than 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. . .

*Near relative includes the voter’s spouse or the voter’s father, mother, father-in-law, mother-in-law, grandfather, grandmother, brother, or sister of the whole or half blood, or the son, daughter, adopting parent, adopted child, stepparent, stepchild, uncle, aunt, nephew, or niece."
https://www.ohiosos.gov/elections/voters/absentee-voting/

I called my county BOE to verify that I could use the ballot box to return my, my wife's and my daughter's ballots and they affirmed. I would recommend that you contact your county BOE to confirm this as well.

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