Early voting for the May primary and the SAVE Act
The Ohio Primary will be decided May 5 when voters choose the party candidates for a number of races including Ohio governor where Vivek Ramaswamy is the leader on the Republican ticket and Amy Acton is running unopposed on the Democratic ticket, while Don Kissick is running on the Libertarian ticket. Other statewide offices as well as federal, statehouse and judicial races are on the ballot. And voters in some areas will also decide school and other issues.
The voter registration deadline is Monday, April 6. Early voting, both in-person and by mail, begins on April 7. And now is the time for voters to check on their registration and decide how they plan to vote.
During this primary cycle, there is also talk in Washington of hardening voter registration and voting rules, including adding a proof of citizenship requirement. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act or SAVE Act is being discussed in the U.S. Senate. It's already passed the U.S. House. While we don't know if that legislation will pass or if lawmakers will hammer out changes to it, the media coverage may have confused some voters for this primary.
On Wednesday's "Sound of Ideas," we talked about registering and voting in the May primary and how the SAVE Act could impact access to voting if it passed.
Below is a transcript of some of the questions and answers covered in the show. The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Q: The voter registration deadline for the Ohio May primary is April 6.What should people be doing in advance of that date?
A: Jen Miller, Executive Director, League of Women Voters of Ohio: 鈥淓very person, even if they're a regular voter, should get online and check their registration to make sure it's up to date. You know, a lot of us move and forget to update our registration, but also people are removed from the rolls if they are infrequent voters and now there's new citizenship checks. And there could be some errors, and someone could be removed accidentally. So, every person should get online at their Board of Elections or the Secretary of State site and check and make sure the registration is up to date by Monday and fix any issues online.鈥�
Q: What are the options for voting in Ohio?
A: Miller: 鈥淲e have three ways to vote. And that's incredible because that means we have different options. But each of those options has different requirements and logistics. And so, first step is to decide, do you want to vote absentee where the ballot is mailed to you? Do you want to vote at the early voting center, or do you want to vote on Election Day? If you vote absently, you need just the last four digits of your Social Security number and your signature to request that ballot, but you don't want to delay, you want to get that request in immediately, and then you would prove your identity again when you return the ballot. Voting early and on Election Day, you need to have one of our photo IDs. They need to be unexpired. And then there are some other logistics, too. On Election Day for example, your polling location could have changed. So, you're always going to check that before you leave your house.
Q: Talk about how voting differs in a primary and what does it mean to vote a party-affiliated ballot?
A: Aaron Ockerman, Executive Director, Ohio Association of Election Officials: 鈥淭hat decision is made either when you request your ballot by mail, like Jen was talking about, or when you show up either at the early voting location, or when [you] show up at your polling location. So, you will be asked at that point which party you would like to pull a ballot for, and that's when you make that decision: Republican, Democrat, I believe we also have a Libertarian primary this year as well, so you'll have some different options. If you don't want to affiliate with the party, if you don't want to pull a party ballot, you do have the option of just pulling what we call an issues-only ballot, and that allows you to vote on any issues that might appear, school levies, fire levies, township levies, things like that. 鈥� It's always good to double-check. I will admit I am guilty of showing up at my polling location because I was enthusiastic about voting in a primary, and I wanted to pull an issues-only ballot only to be told that there were no issues in my precinct. So, I went home a little disappointed, but a little wiser as well. So, make sure you do double-check just to make sure that you have issues in your precinct if you do want to do that.鈥�
Q: Can voters switch party ballots when voting in an Ohio primary?
A: Ockerman: 鈥�Absolutely, you are able to switch parties from your previous years. Basically, you show up and you simply say, 鈥業 would like to pull a Republican ballot. I'd like to pull a Democratic ballot.鈥� There are no restrictions on that. We have, for the most part, an open primary system in that regard. We did have a law in the books for many years that basically said when you showed up and if you requested a ballot for a party that was different from when you had requested earlier, then you had to sign an oath. And the oath was more or less affirming that you believed in all the ideals and values and beliefs of that political party. And so that, I guess, was the party's way of just making sure that you were affirming that you supported them. We got rid of that a few years ago. You don't have to do that anymore. You literally just show up, request a ballot, it's handed to you and you vote. 鈥t does not matter what party you are currently affiliated with, you can always switch parties without any hassle.鈥�
Q: The grace period for mail-in ballots in Ohio no longer exists. What does that mean for absentee voters?
A: Miller: 鈥淭his is a part of making a voting plan -- laws change. And so, you want to make sure that your plan is up to date. Unfortunately, our grace period is no longer available. So, it used to be that if your ballot was postmarked in time, that you had some days after the election for it to arrive in the Board of Elections. Now, your absentee ballot needs to be at the Board of Elections before the polls close on Election Day. So, that means if you're going to put it in the mail, do not delay, but it would be better to get your absentee ballot to the county dropbox or to the Board of Elections office.鈥�
Q: From Todd (Caller): Is there an effort to move any question about somebody鈥檚 party affiliation from the voter process?
A: Miller: 鈥�I agree entirely that it would be far better if our party affiliation was private. This is something that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem to oppose in general, that there could be some that stand with us, but the majority of lawmakers don't agree, and this would take a change in state policy. But I do agree with you that in Ohio, I think most of us are independent. We may decide to swing back and forth between Republican and Democrat, especially given our gerrymandered districts where the primary matters so much.I think we will continue to have that party affiliation be publicly available.鈥�
Ockerman: 鈥淚 would just point out in case there's any confusion, the way you vote in a general election, for whom you vote, what parties you vote for in any particular contest, that's all private. No one will ever know who you voted for in a general election ballot. So, while the public can determine your party affiliation, there's certainly no ability for them to actually discover who you've voted for.鈥�
Q: Are you allowed to drop off a family member鈥檚 ballot (if voting absentee)?
A: Miller: 鈥淵es, and so if you're going to use the dropbox, which is 24-7, you really should only be using that to return your personal ballot. If you are bringing a family member's ballot, you need to go while the Board of Elections is open so that you can deliver that into the office.鈥�
Q: Are early in-person voting times standard statewide?
A: Ockerman: 鈥淭hey are. There was a time when we first started doing this that they were not.鈥he state legislature and the secretaries of state over the years have standardized those, so there are standard hours now. They are certainly available if you visit your Board of Elections website or if you go to the secretary of state website.鈥�
Q: What does it look like in Ohio currently in terms of voter fraud?
A: Ockerman: 鈥淰oter fraud is infinitesimally small and I think this is such an important point. In Ohio, we run elections in a 100% bipartisan way. So, it starts at the top with the way we have chosen to structure our election administration system as being 100% bi-partisan. That is a huge check and balance that I think should give the public a lot of confidence in the way that we do things. We don't connect our voting machines to the internet. That is a state law, so you can't hack or rig elections via the internet. We test all of our voting machines publicly. We conduct all of our counting publicly. So, when we do our official canvas, that is a public meeting at the Board of Elections that our voters can attend and watch and scrutinize. And then we audit every single election in the State of Ohio through a public process that again, the public can attend and watch if they have questions or concerns. So, from well before Election Day through Election Day, post-Election Day we are very, very diligent in making sure that our elections are safe. Our audits show that we have well over 99.9% accuracy rate year after year for our elections. That again is all something you can document and double-check if you want to do the math. So, we feel very good about the way we conduct elections here in the State of Ohio. We feel very that they are both safe and accessible to our voters.鈥�
Q: What about the impact of the SAVE Act being discussed in the U.S. Senate?
A: Miller: 鈥�I think what Ohio voters need to know is that number one, this is not law now, so don't panic, but number two, it is wholly unnecessary and very, very bad. The caller is correct that if we need to prove our citizenship when we register, that is going to disenfranchise wide swaths of American citizens. He's right that it will definitely impact women. Ohio has 3 1/2 million women who are married or have been married, and at least 75% of them changed their name, so that means they would have to go get additional documents to prove their citizenship. Similarly, rural Americans are twice as likely to lack access to their birth certificate or a passport. Older Ohioans, we have 2 million. Ohioans at 65 years and older, they often do not have access to their documents. The same with people with disabilities and, of course, youth voters. And so what everyone should do is call their senator and say no.鈥�
Q: I want to ask more specifically about non-citizens voting in Ohio because proponents of this legislation center on proof of citizenship for registering and casting ballots. So, what are you hearing from election officials? Is non-citizen voting a problem in Ohio?
A: Ockerman: 鈥淔rom our perspective, it is not a problem. I want to be fair and say that the folks that are pushing for more verification of citizenship status would tell you that if one non-citizen votes, then that's a huge problem. And certainly, we do have instances of a couple individuals slipping through the cracks and non-citizens voting. But I think the number is single digits of several million votes cast. So, I will leave the severity of that problem, I guess, to your listeners and to their own determination. I don't think we view it as something that is easy to do or is happening widely. And I do feel like in Ohio, I think Jen mentioned this right from the bat, we do have some citizenship verification that's already built into our process. It's something that we are actively pursuing. So, we feel good, once again, that we've anticipated these problems in Ohio and we've really kind of gotten ahead of the curve as far as trying to prevent it.鈥�
Guests:
-Jen Miller, Executive Director, League of Women Voters of Ohio
-Aaron Ockerman, Executive Director, Ohio Association of Election Officials
