Ohio Secretary of State considers changes to election laws

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- There are only a few weeks left before new lawmakers are sworn in at the Statehouse next year; in the meantime, Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R-Ohio) is laying the groundwork for new election laws.  

“I'm not encouraging any big comprehensive election changes to be made in that compressed timeline of lame duck session,” he said. “That's not wise.”  

LaRose has been asking the General Assembly for a few months now to have more authority when it comes to verifying citizenship status when someone registers to vote.  

“Ohio's doing that on the front end. We would like to make that law. Candidly, we would like to encourage other states to do that as well,” LaRose said.  

He said part of that is also out of the hands of the General Assembly, adding he is looking for more data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).    

“They had been unwilling to share citizenship data. I’ve got a hunch that the new administration may be more willing to share that citizenship data with us.” he said. “When someone registers to vote on the front end, we then verify that against both BMV and DHS data. But the DHS data that we have is limited. There are four federal databases for citizenship. They only give us access to one.”  

Kayla Griffin Green, state director for Voting is Local, said she agrees the voter registration system needs improvement, but thinks LaRose is “fear mongering.” She said she he thinks the solution is simpler.   

“One of the very simple things that they can do is change the voter registration forms, that they can have some really clear instructions that are failsafe,” Green said.  

LaRose also said he won’t "stand in the way" if lawmakers want to eliminate ballot drop boxes, something he called for before November's election.  

“Five years ago, we didn't have drop boxes in Ohio really beyond just a couple of our boards of elections that chose to have them. It's really a relatively new phenomenon,” he said. “In many ways, they are more trouble than they're worth. But if the General Assembly decides to get rid of them, I'm not going to oppose that.”  

LaRose said he thinks drop boxes do create another opportunity for people to personally return their ballot, but said the best way to return an absentee ballot is by mail. Green said it is not so easy for all Ohioans to mail a ballot, though, and said it might be small to some but could be seen as a “poll tax” for others.  

“Putting a ballot in the mail costs money,” she said. “We could just expand the amount of early voting locations or expand the amount of drop boxes so that people don't have to travel from the farthest side of the county into their city center in order to drop off the ballot."  

LaRose is also interested in having closed primaries in the state. Right now, when an Ohio voter casts a ballot in a primary election, they can decide which party they want to vote for when they get to the polls. LaRose wants to change that so only registered Republicans can vote in the Republican primary and registered Democrats in the Democratic one.  Most Ohio voters are not affiliated with either party, and are registered as independents.  

“I, for one, believe that we should join the vast majority of other states in having closed primaries,” he said. “That's the way it is in most states. In Ohio, you can choose your party affiliation the day you walk into the primary election. I don't think that's a good thing.”  

“To close primaries would eliminate more than half of our voting population in the primaries,” Green said. “So, I think that would definitely disadvantage the voters and we definitely do not want to see that type of action take place.”  

LaRose said he would also be supportive of more early voting locations.  

“If (the General Assembly) wanted to have multiple early voting locations, our boards of elections would be ready to adapt to that change,” he said. “But it's not the law right now.”  

Overall, Green said she thinks LaRose should take his ideas in a different direction.  

“I would say if he wants to advance some policies, we should think about automatic voter registration,” she said, “We should think about same-day voter registration. And we should think about also expanding early voting locations.”  

LaRose said he has talked to Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) who is House-Speaker elect for the next General Assembly.

“Protecting the integrity Ohio’s elections remains a priority for the Senate," a spokesperson for Senate Republicans said in a statement. "It’s unfortunate that even after the mandate sent by voters on Election day, there are out of state organizations that continue to target Ohio’s Constitution with efforts that would undermine the security of Ohio’s elections and disenfranchise the voice of Ohio’s legally registered voters.”