COLUMBUS, Ohio — Now that the primaries for Ohio’s two special congressional elections are behind us, the state’s top elections official and the General Assembly are focusing their attention on the way elections are operated in the future.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said he wants Ohioans to be sure of one thing.
“We have honest elections in the state of Ohio. People need to know that,” said LaRose.
LaRose wanted to drive home that point. He sat at the same table Monday with Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan who praised the way the state runs elections, but who has also been outspoken in his false claims about the 2020 Presidential Election being stolen from former President Donald Trump.
LaRose said, “To say that the election was stolen I think is hyperbole.”
Although, LaRose supports a number of changes to the way voting is done in Ohio.
“The best thing as it relates to campaign finance is transparency,” said LaRose. “Voters deserve to know who’s spending money to try to influence politics in the state of Ohio.”
Which brings up dark money, or money spent on political ads where the donor and the source of the money are unknown. LaRose said he is all for shining a light on dark money as along as it does not infringe on anyone’s First Amendment rights.
LaRose recently testified in favor of a bill House Republicans introduced that would change the way elections are run in Ohio.
House Bill 294 calls for a number of things, including a limit of three drop boxes located only at county boards of elections offices no matter the population, shortening the window they could be accessed to 10 days instead of the 30 days that was allowed in November’s election, and eliminating the Monday before the election as an early voting day by shifting those hours to the previous weekend.
“House Bill 294 is nothing more than a voter suppression bill,” said Katy Shanahan with All on the Line, a national campaign fighting against gerrymandering and pushing for fair maps in redistricting.
Shanahan believes this is not what the majority of Ohioans want to see become law.
“Voters who look like me, who live in affluent neighborhoods won’t have trouble casting their ballots, but this bill will make it more difficult for members of BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color] communities, elderly voters, voters with disabilities, young and student voters, rural voters to cast their ballots,” Shanahan said.
LaRose disagreed.
“That’s not voter suppression. That’s thoughtful elections administration, and for people to demagogue it and call it voter suppression is I think disingenuous,” said LaRose.
The new state budget also bans the public from working with the government to promote voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, but LaRose, who has hosted similar events in the past, said he will continue to do so.
“An easy fix is a bill that Rep. [Bride Rose] Sweeney has introduced that would just reverse that provision. And so, I would encourage Secretary LaRose to join us in supporting that bill,” Shanahan said.
And then there’s redistricting. The Ohio Redistricting Commission, which LaRose is on, will meet for the first time Friday. It is tasked with creating new maps for legislative and congressional districts. If it gets bipartisan support, it will be a 10-year map. If not, a four-year map.
LaRose said it comes down to compromise between both parties.
“Voters believe they should get to choose their politicians,” said LaRose. “Politicians shouldn’t choose their voters and that’s what lies at the heart of this new redistricting process.”
Shanahan also hopes for bipartisanship.
“I am hopeful that both Democrats and Republicans, who went out on the campaign trail in 2015 and in 2018 saying that they supported a robust transparent process, are ready to actually put their feet to the fire and live up to that,” said Shanahan.
