What Is In Ohio’s New Election Reform Law?

There has been much in the news about the train derailment and chemical burn in East Palestine, Ohio. Most of the news is condemnation of the Biden administration for not offering more help and support for the people who were nuked. Today, Donald Trump and his son Don Junior went to East Palestine to visit with the people, provide meals for the all the first responders, and to take lots of bottled water into the city.

Many people suspect that Joe Biden has not been to Ohio because the people in East Palestine voted for Trump. There may or may not be any truth in the statement, but legislation in the Ohio General Assembly shows that the members there are serious about election security. Jack Fitzhenry at The Daily Signal reported the following: 

Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly closed out 2022 by passing an election reform bill covering photo ID requirements, ballot drop boxes, and mail-in ballots.

In January, Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, signed the bill into law. The result is a substantial improvement to the reliability of the state’s elections as measured by The Heritage Foundation’s Election Integrity Scorecard….

The new law improved Ohio’s score by 10 points over its 2022 total, equaling the single largest improvement by any state during the 2022 legislative cycle. Ohio now earns a total score of 76 out of 100, vaulting the state upward in the rankings from 17^th to a tie for ninth with Texas.

Fitzhenry continued his article with an explanation of the particulars of the new law. The central focus of the reform was on photo IDs. “All Ohio voters casting their ballots in person must now provide a government-issued photo ID at their polling place.” This is an excellent first step because it allows poll workers to identify every potential voter and to give ballots only to eligible voters.

Those voters who prefer to vote by mail will now “be subject to the same voter-verification standards as in-person voting. “Applicants for an absentee ballot must include a copy of their government-issued photo identification with their application to receive a mail-in ballot, along with other unique identifying information, such as the last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number.”

The government-issued photo ID requirement is a higher standard than previous laws that allowed “several forms of non-photo IDS when applying to vote by mail, including utility bills and bank statements, which can be fabricated by anyone with a computer.”

I congratulate Ohio on requiring government-issued photo ID for the opportunity to vote. We live in a day where photo IDs are required in almost everything that we do: apply for Social Security, receive medical help, travel on airplanes, open a bank account. Anyone who suggests that requiring a photo ID to vote is voter suppression is grasping at straws. Recent changes in voter laws in Georgia show that the numbers of voters increased once election integrity was improved.

Government-issued photo ID requirements to vote will cause few problems in Ohio. “As Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose explained, ‘About 98% of Ohioans were already using either their driver license or state-issued photo ID care to vote in the 2022 election.”

Ohio’s election reform law was to ensure that the remaining 2% did not swing a close election. To make it easier for residents to obtain the photo IDs, the law provides for anyone age 17 years or older to receive a free government-issued photo ID. For noncitizens, the ID has a separate notation.

To balance election security with ample voting opportunities, the new law in Ohio codifies the use of ballot drop boxes.

Ohio’s law demonstrates the practical measures states can adopt to minimize the risk of drop boxes becoming a weak link in the chain of ballot custody.

The law dictates that drop boxes must be limited to one per county, placed on county board of elections property, and kept under constant video surveillance. The law further provides that ballots shall be collected form the box at least once  day, but only by a bipartisan team of election officials, who must report the number of ballots collected each business day.

Fitzhenry noted that Ohio’s new law has a weak link. It enables “the secretary of state to mail unsolicited absentee-ballot applications.”

Mail-in ballots remain more vulnerable to fraud and manipulation than in-person voting at a designated polling place since they are the only type of ballot that is voted outside the supervision of election officials and outside the observation of poll watchers.

While they should be made available to voters who will be unable to vote in person on Election Day or during any early-voting period because they are disabled or for other valid reasons, Ohio should not be pushing even more voters toward mail-in voting.

Despite his cautions about mail-in voting, Fitzhenry gave credit to Ohio’s Legislature, governor, and secretary of state. “They knew that even modest reforms would prompt unfair criticism of their motives. But their achievement, a more secure election process, will long outlast the criticism.”