Ohio Elections

The Drop Box Dilemma Part II

vebrankovic · November 23, 2020 ·

By Nicholas Matuszewski

On October 8, U.S District Judge Aaron Polster overruled the one drop box per county limit imposed by Frank LaRose, Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State.

Judge Polster focused his ruling on the fact that 15% of Cincinnati and Cleveland’s population would have to travel over 90 minutes to vote. Of those 15%, most are poor minorities; many of whom may not even have the means to travel that far and would potentially be forced to utilize crowded public transportation and risk endangering their health during the pandemic.

158,000 Ohio Voters Purged Part I: Junk Mail Matters

Election Law Society · December 16, 2019 ·

By: Sadie Peloquin

On September 6^th of this year, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose oversaw the removal of roughly 158,000 registrations from the state’s voter roll. This purge resulted from a controversial 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, handed down in June 2018, which upheld an Ohio voter-purge law that allowed the removal of inactive voters who failed to update their registrations if they moved. Though LaRose implemented a series of removal exemptions over the past year, many voting rights activists are concerned that the purge still resulted in the mistaken removal of active voters. This blog post will cover the 2018 Supreme Court case and will be followed by another that looks at how the voter purge itself was carried out over the last year.

The Fourth Time is the Charm: Ohio Voters Implement a Bipartisan Redistricting Commission

Election Law Society · February 3, 2016 ·

By: Kelsey Carpenter

On Election Day 2015, Ohio voters implemented ballot initiative Issue 1. This initiative creates a bipartisan redistricting commission to draw the state legislative district lines following the 2020 census, as opposed to the current system that allows the majority party to elect five partisan members to the redistricting commission. According to Issue 1, a seven-member panel that includes representatives from both the majority and minority parties will redraw the lines. The redistricting plan will pass for four years if four members of the panel accept the lines, while it will last for ten years if at least two of those votes come from members of the minority party. It is an interesting plan that attempts to eliminate partisan politics by incentivizing bipartisanship and cooperation.