(C) Ohio Capital Journal
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Federal court sides with Ohio voters with disabilities, strikes down state law • Ohio Capital Journal [1]
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Date: 2024-07-30
It excludes caregivers, employees of a care facility, grandchildren, cousins, neighbors, friends and anyone else unrelated.
If anyone not listed returns the ballot, that would be a fourth-degree felony. If a voter receives a felony for helping their loved one, they would no longer be able to vote.
“If something happened to me, my husband — a brother-in-law — couldn’t do it,” Friedman Yaksic said.
Jen Miller with the League of Women Voters of Ohio filed a lawsuit with the ACLU, saying Ohio is violating the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and the Voting Rights Act.
Federal law states that voters with disabilities are allowed to “select a person of their choice to assist them with voting.”
“Many Ohio voters need to rely on grandkids, in-laws, roommates and neighbors to return their absentee ballot or assist in other ways,” Miller told me. “But those folks could have faced a felony sentence, which is wrong.”
Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan Entin explained the lawmakers probably didn’t mean to disenfranchise voters with disabilities.
“Legislators were concerned about the possibility of a practice called ballot harvesting — that some slimy, unethical or corrupt people will go and corral a whole bunch of votes, absentee ballots and turn them in in a way that undermines the integrity of the election,” Entin said.
To be clear, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Ohio leaders, like Sec. of State Frank LaRose, have acknowledged this, but Entin said this is another “preventative” step for them.
Both Miller and Friedman Yaksic think there is another motive.
“The people that are passing these laws think that the people that will be impacted by these laws wouldn’t vote for them — so they don’t want them to vote,” Friedman Yaksic said.
The League of Women Voters has been trying to prevent against restrictive voting changes, and is now championing the anti-gerrymandering constitutional amendment that was just certified to make the Nov. ballot.
“We need to have lawmakers who listen to us, the people of Ohio, right now because lawmakers know they will win their seat over and over again,” Miller said.
Judge Bridget Meehan Brennan at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio sided with Miller on access, striking down that specific provision of the law.
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