A bill that would change absentee voting in Ohio was supposed to be on the floor of the Ohio House Wednesday, but it was pulled at the last minute. That didn’t keep Democrats from speaking out against it. They said passage of the bill under consideration would deprive Ohioans of their right to vote by leading to more provisional ballots being cast. And Daniel Tokaji of the Ohio State University, a professor who’s studied Ohio’s voting laws extensively, says he’s also against the bill.
"Our current early voting laws allow more people to vote and have their votes counted," Tokaji says. "This law would desimate that window and drastically reduce the time available for early voting with no good reason)
But Republican Bob Mechlenborg, sponsor of the bill under consideration, says the bill was pulled so that lawmakers could give parts of it further study. But he says that early voting window that Tokaji talks about is an important item to keep in the bill.
"Most importantly this bill does get rid of golden week, that week that is most open to fraud and abuse with respect to registration and voting at exactly the same day," Mechlenborg says.
There’s no word yet on when the Ohio House will once again take up the bill.