Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose: no extra ballot drop boxes for November election
From WWW.CLEVELAND.COM
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Secretary of State Frank LaRose said Wednesday he is banning county boards of elections from offering more than one drop box for completed absentee ballots this November, saying it’s grown too late to make changes to how Ohio will administer this year’s presidential election.
LaRose, a Republican, more than three weeks ago formally asked Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, also a Republican, for a legal opinion on whether the extra drop boxes were allowed under state law.
But LaRose said Wednesday Yost had not yet responded, and that it’s now too late make such an election change. Early voting in Ohio begins on Oct. 6, while the election is on Nov. 3. He said offering extra drop boxes, which Democrats and voting-rights activists say is legal, would invite lawsuits that could upend the process of preparing for the election.
The move led to a swift reaction from Democrats, who accused LaRose of voter suppression, saying the request of Yost was just a charade that would allow LaRose to eventually run out the clock.
Voting-rights advocates and elections officials, including in Cleveland, had requested extra drop-boxes at locations such as public libraries as a way to reduce in-person voting lines and relieve pressure on the mail system. Elections officials expect an unprecedented level of interest in mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“This has nothing to do with the legislature, who LaRose likes to blame for everything he doesn’t want to do,” Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper said on Twitter. “This is his decision to artificially limit drop boxes to one per county. It’s a terrible decision, totally disregarding voter safety.”
LaRose, meanwhile, pointed to the example of Pennsylvania, where President Donald Trump’s campaign sued state officials in late June over their plan to offer similar drop boxes. The lawsuit is still pending.
“I don’t want to subject our county boards of election to a bunch of wasteful litigation, but I do hope our legislature weighs in on it,” he said, speaking at a news conference in Columbus.
Bethany McCorkle, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office, said Yost was preparing to issue an opinion on multiple drop boxes this week, but LaRose withdrew the request on Tuesday, she said.
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