Ohio: GOP, Democrats close to election-law deal | The Columbus Dispatch

A potential last-minute agreement between House Republicans and Democrats could end a bitter fight over the repeal of a GOP-crafted election-law overhaul. Just minutes before voting to repeal House Bill 194 — and as House Democrats bombed away on the GOP in floor speeches — House Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, and Minority Leader Armond Budish, D-Beachwood, worked out a deal to suspend the vote. Republicans had planned to repeal House Bill 194 and end the November referendum effort. But Fair Elections Ohio, the coalition of Democrats and progressive groups that worked closely with President Barack Obama’s re-election team to challenge the law, resisted the repeal. The group argued that it would deny people the right to vote against the law and would have blocked early voting in the three days before Election Day. The group and other Democrats had promised to fight the GOP repeal effort in court. Republicans argued that the opposition simply was a political effort to keep the referendum to help drive up voter turnout.

Ohio: State Rep. Armond Budish says GOP-approved changes would cut early voting to just six days | PolitiFact Ohio

Ohio’s Republican-led House recently passed a set of voting regulations that overhaul the state’s elections system. The proposed changes in House Bill 194 include allowing voters to change their address online, requiring people casting provisional ballot to provide additional forms of identity, eliminating the requirement that poll workers direct voters in the wrong precinct to the correct one and prohibiting elections boards from mailing absentee ballots to voters.

Among the controversial changes are new limits on early voting, which Democrats say amount to voter suppression. Republicans say the state needs more uniform voting regulations and less costly ways to manage elections.