Ohio: Court sides with blind voters over Ohio Secretary of State | The Blade

A federal appeals court on Monday resurrected a lawsuit against Secretary of State Jon Husted that was filed by blind voters claiming Ohio’s paper absentee ballots illegally force them to rely on others to vote. The Cincinnati-based U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling by the lower U.S. District Court in Columbus that found in favor of Mr. Husted. The lower court found the remedies proposed by blind plaintiffs would have fundamentally changed Ohio’s voting system. On appeal, a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit, all appointed by Republican presidents, found the lower court should not have simply accepted the secretary of state’s arguments on the matter. It sent the case back for further proceedings.

Ohio: Emails, documents are stark reminder of Ohio’s secret gerrymandering process | Cleveland Plain Dealer

For weeks in 2011, state-paid contractors, on leave from their public jobs for Republican lawmakers, worked secretly in a hotel room described as the “bunker” to create political maps aimed at creating safe Republican districts for most of Ohio’s congressional delegation.
The maps, drawn in part with guidance from national Republican Party leaders and the staff of U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner, often disregarded community concerns and instead focused on political gains by creating districts that in some cases weave more than 100 miles across the state. It worked. In three election cycles since, no seat has changed party hands – a 12-4 GOP majority despite a much closer overall vote.

Ohio: Jon Husted: Replacing voting machines will be costly | Dayton Daily News

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said he’s hoping the federal government comes forward with money to update Ohio’s voting machines but admits, “I don’t hold my breath in thinking that they are going to.” Husted said the Ohio legislature is looking at ways to share costs to update voting machines that date to the mid-2000s. A split of 80 percent cost for the state and 20 percent for the local governments is being considered for replacement of machines that the Ohio Association of Elections Officials has said could cost an estimated $200 million. Ohio and other states replaced their old punch card voting systems with electronic touch screen and optical scan machines in the wake of the “hanging chad” debacle in Florida during the deadlocked 2000 presidential election and additional problems in 2004, including long lines in Ohio. The federal Help America Vote Act in 2002 for the first time provided funding to help states buy voting equipment.

Ohio: Supreme Court tackles Ohio voter purge efforts | McClatchy

After tackling partisan gerrymandering in October, the U.S. Supreme Court will take on the controversial issue of voter purges in a November case that could have major implications for the 2018 mid-term elections. Scheduled for oral argument on Nov. 8, Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute will determine whether failure to cast a ballot in recent elections, or “voter inactivity,” can lawfully trigger efforts to remove a person from the voter registration rolls. Critics say the purge policy used by Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted violates the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and disproportionately impacts black, Hispanic and poor voters who traditionally support Democrats. Republicans argue that fraud by ineligible voters can occur if people who die or move away aren’t regularly identified and cleared from the registration rolls as the NVRA requires.

Ohio: Grand jury rejects charges against 17 identified in Jon Husted’s illegal voting probe | Cleveland Plain Dealer

A grand jury voted not to charge 17 Cuyahoga County residents who were among dozens of non-U.S. citizens identified by Ohio Sec. of State Jon Husted’s office as illegally voting or registering to vote in past elections. The grand jury voted late Tuesday not to hand up false voter registration charges against 16 people, and not to charge a 17th person with illegal voting, according to court documents made public Wednesday. The dates of offenses listed in court records date back to September 1996. Voter fraud cases can be hard to bring because investigators must show the voter knew they were not allowed to register to vote or cast a ballot.

Ohio: He Didn’t Vote in a Few Elections. In the Next One, Ohio Said He Couldn’t. | The New York Times

Larry Harmon, a software engineer who lives near Akron, Ohio, says he is “a firm believer in the right to vote.” But sometimes he stays home on Election Day, on purpose. In 2012, for instance, he was unimpressed by the candidates. He did not vote, he said, because “there isn’t a box on the ballot that says ‘none of the above.’” Three years later, Mr. Harmon did want to vote, against a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana. But his name was not on the list at his usual polling place. It turned out that Mr. Harmon’s occasional decisions not to vote had led election officials to strike his name from the voting rolls. On Nov. 8, the Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether the officials had gone too far in making the franchise a use-it-or-lose-it proposition.

Ohio: Iowa can teach Ohio a thing or two … about redistricting | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Gerrymandering is a non-issue in Iowa. Since 1981, a nonpartisan state agency has drawn Iowa’s congressional district lines, following strict rules to create compact districts without regard to politics. The legislature still has the final say, but each time the agency’s work has been approved by the legislature without revision. Perhaps Ohio could learn something from Iowa.
In this sixth part of a cleveland.com series – Out of Line: Impact 2017 and Beyond – we examine what could be learned from the Hawkeye State in search of a way to rid Ohio of the politically motivated gerrymandering currently focused on politicians and their political parties rather than the citizens.

Ohio: Should registered voters in Ohio who haven’t voted in six straight elections be purged from the rolls? | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted appealed a lower court ruling that rejected the state’s policy of starting to purge the registration of voters who fail to vote over a two-year period. Registration is canceled if the voter does not cast a ballot during the subsequent four years or update his or her address. Repeated notices are sent to voters whose registration has been flagged. Organizations who challenged Ohio’s policy say targeting inactive voters for eventual registration cancellation amounts to “voter suppression” that violates the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.  “It is common sense that eligible voters have the right to choose when, how, and how often to vote,” said a statement on the case from ACLU Voting Rights Project Director Dale Ho. “They shouldn’t be disenfranchised for exercising that right.”

Ohio: New congressional redistricting method could be on ballot by next year | WCMH

Who should control the drawing of congressional district maps is at stake as Republican leadership at the statehouse come together to create a panel of four lawmakers who could develop a new method by the end of the year. For months, an effort supported by the League of Women Voters has been underway to gather signatures so a ballot issue could be placed before the people of Ohio. The measure would be similar to one introduced a few years ago. In 2015, voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot issue that restructured how the General Assembly districts will be drawn starting in 2021. To get to that point, four lawmakers sat down and hashed out a plan over a three-hour meeting; though to hear State Senator Matt Huffman tell the story, it was mostly himself and Vernon Sykes working out the details with some help from the other two men in the room, Keith Faber and Joe Schiavoni; this after hearing testimony from the public, of course.

Ohio: Maintenance of Butler County voting machines raises concerns | Journal-News

The Butler County commissioners are concerned the Board of Elections dropped a maintenance contract on its 1,600 voting machines, presumably because they thought they would be getting new ones soon. Commissioner Don Dixon said he understood the Board of Elections may have been trying to save money — the maintenance agreement costs about $85,000 a year — if they thought the voting machines would be replaced soon, but that’s not the case. “If they are under the impression that this equipment is going to be changed out in the next months, I think they are operating under the wrong assumption,” said Dixon, who added that an 85/15 funding bill from the state would not happen until 2018 or 2019. Butler County has about 1,600 voting machines — 150 are currently broken but are used for spare parts, according to the Board of Elections — that are 12 years old.

Ohio: California joins 11 states to oppose one of the ways Ohio cancels a voter’s registration | Los Angeles Times

California’s attorney general joined a group of other states on Monday to ask the Supreme Court to abolish a controversial policy in Ohio that cancels a voter’s registration for not frequently casting a ballot. A federal appeals court earlier this year found the Ohio practice to be illegal. Though California doesn’t use a similar process, state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra signed on to a court filing with 11 other states and the District of Columbia to urge the justices to uphold the lower court’s ruling. “Removing eligible voters from registration lists serves to silence and suppress citizens,” Becerra said in a written statement. “All too often, state policies like the one we’re opposing in Ohio make it harder for our most vulnerable citizens to vote.”

Ohio: New Cuyahoga County initiative will encourage voting | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Cuyahoga County announced Tuesday – National Voter Registration Day – that it will hiring a voting-rights coordinator as part of a new initiative to promote the right and need to vote. The county plans to lead efforts in voter engagement, support a voter awareness summit for youth  and partner with libraries to promote online voter registration options for residents. “The right to vote is critical to our democracy,” County Executive Armond Budish said in a statement. “At a time when some are trying to make it harder to vote, we need to do more to help people get registered. Cuyahoga County is dedicated to making voting as accessible as possible for all of our residents.”

Ohio: Sen. Sherrod Brown and others criticize Ohio’s voter culling process in Supreme Court briefs | Cleveland Plain Dealer

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown joined critics of Republican Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted’s process for purging inactive voters from the state’s rolls today in filing briefs at the U.S. Supreme Court. Brown, a Democrat who held Husted’s job from 1983 to 1991 and worked in Congress to pass the National Voter Registration Act, argued that Husted’s procedure for voiding registrations of people who haven’t voted in several years “would wrongly cancel the registrations of thousands of eligible Ohio voters.” “Citizens have the right not to vote for any reason, and states cannot penalize them for doing so by canceling their registrations,” Brown’s legal brief said. “Ohio’s Supplemental Program does exactly that because it uses registered voters’ failure to vote as the trigger to subject them to the change-of-residence confirmation process.”

Ohio: Lawmakers look for new way to draw congressional lines | Dayton Daily News

State lawmakers plan to take another run at changing how Ohio’s congressional districts are carved out — a politically charged issue that has eluded reform for years. Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina, said this week that legislative leaders will announce details on a congressional redistricting study group this week. “Regardless of which side of the aisle you fall on, it’s worth airing out that discussion and seeing if we think there is a better process than what we have now,” Obhof said. “I’ve expressed some concerns in the past and I maintain those that any time you’re chipping away at something that has traditionally been a responsibility of the Legislature you should be cautious about that but I think there is plenty of room for us to have discussions and have meaningful opportunity for reform in the coming months.”

Ohio: What Ohio can learn from Arizona to eliminate gerrymandering | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Thanks to Arizona, there is an alternative to allowing elected politicians – focused on their self-interests or those of their party – to draw the congressional district boundaries every 10 years. Arizona voters in 2000 approved a different way. They changed the state constitution to establish an independent commission to do the work. Challenged in the Supreme Court in 2015, the use of an independent commission is now established as a legal alternative. State legislatures do not have to be involved. Perhaps Ohio could learn something from Arizona – ideas that could help Ohio devise a system to draw maps by focusing on the interest of the citizens instead of politicians and their parties.

Ohio: Parties in lawsuit call Ohio purges voter suppression | Associated Press

Groups challenging Ohio’s system for removing inactive voters from rolls are disagreeing with the state elections chief’s arguments and the Trump administration’s contention that the purges are legal. The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York-based public advocacy group Demos said in their latest U.S. Supreme Court filing that targeting registered voters who fail to vote in a two-year period for eventual removal from the registration rolls, even if they haven’t moved and remain eligible, is a tool for voter suppression.

Ohio: Lucas County Elections Board says it overcame computer malfunction | The Toledo Blade

Despite an equipment malfunction that threatened to delay the vote-counting Tuesday, the Lucas County Board of Elections finished reporting the Toledo primary election earlier than most years, Director LaVera Scott said Wednesday. The board reported a 100 percent count at 11:15 p.m. “We were done earlier in this election than we’ve ever done in a primary,” Ms. Scott said. The computer that hosts the board’s vote-tabulating database broke down about 6 p.m., just 90 minutes before the polls were to close. The computer server was purchased in April, 2015 for $6,974 and is serviced and under warranty by the board’s elections contractor, Dominion Voting Systems Co., of Denver. Ms. Scott said Dominion emailed an apology and promised the county a new server for the November election.

Ohio: More counties switching to paper ballots amid election hacking fears | News 5 Cleveland

Tuesday is Cleveland’s Mayoral primary. If you go to vote, you’ll notice, as it has been for years, you’ll be filling out a paper ballot. This though, is not the norm. In most Ohio counties, a touch screen computer system is used. But it turns out, when it comes to voting, old school is better than new technology. “In my opinion, old school is better,” said Pat McDonald, the Director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. Technology is rapidly evolving, but one thing that’s stayed the same though is the fact, a paper trail doesn’t lie. “It’s great as well for audit trails. So during recounts and auditing purposes, you have that actual, physical piece of paper which is the ballot to compare a hand-count to the actual tabulation system,” said McDonald. In Cuyahoga County it’s been only paper ballots since 2008.

Ohio: Dennis Kucinich finds Cuyahoga County Board of Elections building unlocked, no one in building | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich found a public back door to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections building unlocked Saturday afternoon. Kucinich said he was on his way to vote around 2:15 p.m. since the Board of Elections, which is at Euclid Avenue and East 30th Street, is typically open on a Saturday, he said. “I went to the back entrance and I entered and then the alarm went off and I said, ‘That’s odd,'” Kucinich said. He took the elevators up to the second floor and then to the third floor to tell someone that the alarm was going off, he said. “There was no one in the building,” Kucinich said. “The rear door of the Board of Elections was unlocked.”

Ohio: Battle over how Ohio maintains voter rolls nearing conclusion | NBC

How Ohio maintains its voter registration rolls has been under legal attack for well over a year. The war of interpretation is approaching its end before the U.S. Supreme Court. For decades Ohio has maintained its voter rolls the same way, under both Democrat and Republican leadership. When someone uses the US postal service for a change of address, is convicted of a felony or files a death certificate, appropriate action is taken to adjust the voter’s registration to prevent fraud.

Ohio: Justice Dept. Backs Ohio’s Effort to Purge Infrequent Voters From Rolls | The New York Times

The Justice Department has thrown its weight behind Ohio in a high-profile legal fight over the state’s purging of infrequent voters from its election rolls, reversing the federal government’s position under the Obama administration that the practice was unlawful. The move was the latest in a series of changes the department has made in how it enforces civil rights law under the Trump administration. The dispute centers on an aggressive practice used in Ohio, a crucial swing state in presidential elections, that removes voters who sit out three election cycles and fail to respond to a warning. Last year, when the state sought to delete several hundred thousand registrations of infrequent voters ahead of the presidential election, civil-liberties groups filed a lawsuit against Ohio’s secretary of state, Jon Husted. After the Obama-era Justice Department filed a friend-of-the-court brief calling the purging practices unlawful, a federal appeals court ordered Ohio to let those people vote.

Ohio: Justice Department reverses position to support Ohio purging inactive voters in high-profile case | The Washington Post

The Justice Department has reversed itself in a high-profile voting case in Ohio to side with the state and allow the purging of voters from the rolls for not answering election mail and not voting in recent elections. In a court filing Monday, Justice attorneys took the opposite position from the Obama administration in a case that involved the state’s removal of thousands of inactive voters from the Ohio voting rolls. Civil rights groups last year challenged Ohio’s process, arguing that such purges are prohibited under the National Voter Registration Act. The Justice Department under Obama filed an amicus brief siding with the groups, and the Supreme Court is set to hear the case in the next term. But in an unusual turn, the department filed a new amicus brief Monday arguing that the purges of voters are legal under federal law. This brief, unlike the prior one, was not signed by career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division.

Ohio: Trump Administration Stirs Alarm Over Voter Purges | NBC

Larry Harmon, 60, hadn’t voted in a while when he drove to the high school in November 2015 to weigh in on a local referendum in Kent, Ohio. But he wasn’t allowed to cast his ballot. “I served in the military and they tell us, ‘Oh, you’re fighting for freedom.'” he said. “Then you come back and you’re taken off the voter rolls because you didn’t vote for two elections? That doesn’t make sense. I thought that was our right.” Thanks to six years of inactivity — and a single piece of unanswered mail asking him to confirm his voter registration — Harmon, now a plaintiff in a major voter purge lawsuit before the Supreme Court, was removed from Ohio’s voter rolls. “I’ve been paying my taxes, paying my property taxes, registering my car,” he said. “All the data was there for (election officials) to know that I was there.” Harmon was a casualty of the latest voting battleground: How America’s lists of registered, eligible voters are maintained.

Ohio: Lawmaker wants voter registration to be automatic | The Daily Reporter

A Democrat lawmaker’s plan to make voter registration automatic based upon information about the Ohio electorate stored in government and secondary school databases is stalled in committee as of summer recess. House Bill 14, referred to the Government Accountability and Oversight Committee in the Ohio House of Representatives in February, has failed to gain any traction among committee members, despite Kent Rep. Kathleen Clyde’s promise of an additional million Ohio voters added to the rolls. “Automatic voter registration is a far more sensible way to make the list of eligible voters in Ohio,” Clyde said of the plan promoted in the bill she sponsored. “House Bill 14 will allow Ohioans to be added to the rolls when they do everyday things like get a driver’s license, seek disability services or simply turn 18.”

Ohio: Secretary of State tells Supreme Court that state’s voter purge practices are legal | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted on Monday defended Ohio’s practice of beginning the process to cancel registrations of voters who haven’t cast ballots in two years, telling the U.S. Supreme Court its actions are needed to keep accurate voter rolls. In a legal brief, Husted said the state’s procedure doesn’t violate a federal prohibition against removing individuals for failing to vote. The brief said election boards ask inactive registrants to confirm their eligibility. Failure to respond to those confirmation notices – not failure to vote – is what triggers cancellation of a voter’s registration.

Ohio: Voter fraud is rare, Secretary of state tells Trump’s election integrity commission | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Soon after taking office, President Donald Trump assembled an election integrity commission to investigate his theory that millions of people voted illegally in last year’s presidential election. On Monday, Ohio’s top election official wrote in a letter to Trump’s panel that it didn’t happen in Ohio, a swing states crucial to Trump’s victory. … Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted told Trump’s commission his office identified 153 “irregularities” in Ohio during the 2016 election, in which 5.6 million Ohioans cast presidential ballots out of 7.9 million registered voters. His office referred 52 cases for further investigation and prosecution, including 22 individuals who voted in more than one state.

Ohio: Groups Back Decision to Keep Voter Data Private | Public News Service

Voting-rights advocates are backing Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted’s decision to not give private voter information to President Trump’s Election Integrity Commission. The White House panel requested voter data from states as it investigates the president’s claims about fraud in the 2016 election. Husted responded by offering an online link to public-record voter information and stating that private information, such as voters’ Ohio drivers license numbers, will not be provided. Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, said it was the right move. “The commission seems bent on looking for something that doesn’t actually exist,”she said, “and asking for voter information and all sorts of information that is just truly not necessary and that they don’t have the right to have.”

Ohio: How Trump, Russia and purging voters is shaping the race for Ohio’s next elections chief | Akron Beacon Journal

Two of the three candidates to succeed Ohio’s current secretary of state support his decision not to release sensitive voter information to President Donald Trump’s Commission on Election Integrity. And the third, who would not comment for this story, is accusing her primary opponent of not being a loyal Republican because he criticized Trump in the election. The commission, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, was formed by presidential decree in May after Trump repeatedly said he only lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton because of three to five million illegal votes. There’s no proof of such widespread voter fraud. On that, Rep. Kathleen Clyde and Sen. Frank LaRose, each a candidate for secretary of state, agree. “To say that there is massive widespread voter fraud is not correct in my assessment,” said LaRose, who didn’t mind “studying the issue.”

Ohio: Ken Blackwell, who accidentally released Social Security numbers is on Trump’s voter fraud panel | Los Angeles Times

The Republican gubernatorial primary was just weeks away, and then-Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell had his sights set on securing the nomination. Blackwell had served as mayor of Cincinnati and state treasurer before becoming Ohio’s top elections official, so a bid for governor in 2006 seemed a logical next step in his political career. But in March of that year, his office caused a stir: The full Social Security numbers of 1.2 million Ohio voters were posted accidentally on the secretary of state’s website. A month later, in a separate incident, Blackwell’s office inadvertently distributed voter lists with the Social Security numbers of 5.7 million voters. The numbers, by law, are supposed to remain private. “It wasn’t good at all,” said former Ohio Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland in an interview. “Sloppy … that’s what it was.”

Ohio: Local governments focus on cybersecurity after attacks | Columbus Dispatch

Terri Bettinger paid close attention to the recent cyberattacks on the websites of Ohio government agencies, banks and other businesses. She hoped to learn lessons to better defend the information she oversees. Bettinger is the chief information officer for Franklin County and head of its Data Center, which collects, stores and protects government data from property tax bills to court and medical records. She knows the system will be hacked. “It’s when, not if. It’s going to happen,” Bettinger said. She saw Licking and Henry counties become recent victims of ransomware attacks, in which hackers stole information or locked their systems and demanded to be paid. Neither county paid the high-tech extortion, but both had some services hampered because their computer systems had to be restored.