August 17, 2012
JEREMY KELLEY, DAYTON DAILY NEWS
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has called the Montgomery County Board of Elections back to meet this afternoon at 2 after a heated exchange this morning resulted in a 2-2 tie over early voting hours.Friday’s Board of Elections meeting featured shouts and cursing, as Democrat and Republican board members argued over new early-voting hours implemented statewide by Republican Husted.
Montgomery County’s BOE had previously approved its own hours for in-person absentee voting (commonly called early voting) and had included four weekend days. Husted’s directive Wednesday set standard hours for all counties, and did not include weekends.
Democratic board member Dennis Lieberman made a motion Friday that Montgomery County should follow Husted’s directive on weekday hours, but keep the previously agreed-on weekend hours, arguing that the directive’s wording did not specifically forbid that.
Republican board member Greg Gantt disagreed, saying the directive is the law and he would not go against it or split hairs over wording.
The board ended up voting 2-2 along party lines, and according to state law, Husted will break the tie. Given his directive, that means Montgomery County almost certainly will not have weekend early voting. The BOE expects to send the issue to Husted, along with explanations of board members’ positions, next week.
Republican board member Kay Wick said she thought Husted’s decision to send an absentee ballot application to every registered voter solved concerns about in-office voting hours. But Democratic board president Tom Ritchie Sr. said many people are uncomfortable voting by mail, and they should have more choice about how and when to vote.
Lieberman argued that Husted’s decision would disenfranchise many of the 28,332 Montgomery County residents who did in-office early voting in 2008, citing the thousands who voted on weekends that year.
Gantt disagreed, and a heated exchange ensued
Gantt: “We have yet to have a single person come to this board and say, ‘I could not come down here during all these hours.’ All this hypothetical stuff about single moms working three jobs and they can’t vote, not a single person has come down and said ‘I was denied the right to vote.’ It’s hypothetical crap.”
Ritchie: “I’m really disappointed. We gave an opportunity, and I’m not voting to take it away, I can tell you that. If someone’s going to take it away, it’s going to be a tie vote broken by the Secretary of State who took it away from them to begin with.”
Lieberman followed with an expletive-laced tirade, in which he said Gantt should support the hours he originally voted for, and added there was nothing hypothetical about the fact that voters would be disenfranchised.
Also Friday, a coalition of voter advocates called on Husted to restore at least two weekends for in-person early voting.
“While we understand Secretary Husted’s desire for uniformity, early voting hours must also be reasonable,” said Carrie Davis, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. “Voters in many counties have come to expect that they will be able to cast an early ballot on Saturday or Sunday. Challenging budget times may mean that county Boards of Elections cannot offer early in-person voting every weekend, but even offering two weekends for early voting would make a big difference for working Ohioans.”
The request was endorsed by the League of Women Voters of Ohio, Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates, Project Vote, Ohio AFL-CIO, Miami Valley Voter Protection Coalition, Ohio Women with Disabilities Network, and Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections.