JIM SIEGEL, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Voters would be required to show photo identification at the polls under a bill moving rapidly in the Ohio House despite opposition from Democrats and groups such as AARP Ohio.
For years, state lawmakers have debated how to balance the Republican focus on ensuring ballot security and integrity with Democratic insistence that the voting process be as open and accessible as possible.
With Republicans back in control of all state government, they are pushing a photo-identification requirement that has been proposed in various forms in the past but never implemented in Ohio.
Existing law allows voters to show a photo ID, but they also may use a current utility bill, bank statement, paycheck or government document with a current name and address.
House Democrats called the new proposal “a dangerous bill that will disenfranchise thousands of qualified voters.”
House Bill 159 would require that anyone voting at the polls bring a driver’s license, passport or other government-issued identification card that shows the person’s current address and contains a photo. Otherwise, the person would cast a provisional ballot and then have to provide a photo ID to elections officials within 10 days to have the ballot count.
The bill would not affect absentee voting.
“The United States government has decided that every passenger on an airplane flight must show a photo ID, so why should determining the validity of a voter be any less secure?” said Amy Searcy, deputy director of the Hamilton County Board of Elections.
The bill passed a committee yesterday after two hearings and is scheduled for a vote on the House floor on Wednesday.
Rep. Michael Stinziano, a Columbus Democrat and former executive director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, said he thinks the speed of the process shows that Republicans want the measure in place before voters are asked in November to overturn a new law limiting collective bargaining for public unions – a bill that has not passed yet.
“I can’t help but feel the intent of the bill is not to be as inclusive as we are now,” he said. Any fraud issues that have arisen in Franklin County have come from absentee ballots, not at the polls, Stinziano said.
In written testimony to the committee, Daniel Tokaji, associate director of Ohio State University’s Election Law @ Moritz project, said the bill “would do much harm and no good.”
It “would make it more difficult for eligible citizens to vote and have their votes counted, while doing nothing to promote electoral integrity.”
The League of Women Voters of Ohio, the American Civil Liberties Union, Project Vote and AARP Ohio also joined in opposition.
Saying that up to 18 percent of people older than 65 do not have government-issued photo identification, AARP Ohio wrote to the committee that the bill “places an unnecessary and severe burden on older voters’ fundamental right to vote.”
But Republicans say the bill ensures that voters are not negatively affected; it would require the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to issue a free state ID to anyone who cannot afford one. Someone who has a religious objection to being photographed could sign an affirmation and vote.
Jerry Bonnet, deputy secretary of state for Indiana, which has had a photo-identification requirement since 2005, told the committee that the dire consequences some had predicted there did not come to pass.
Democrats took note that Indiana’s Republican secretary of state, Charlie White, was indicted three weeks ago on felony charges including voter fraud.
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, has not taken a position on the bill, a spokesman said.
House Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, defended the speed of the bill’s movement. “I don’t think there’s a complexity there.”
Voting “is a very important right that we have, and I do not like the idea of having it compromised by sloppy administration,” he said.
Read the original Columbus Dispatch report here.