Election workers process ballots. (Photo: Carl Payne, States Newsroom.)
A Republican lawmaker from Ohio wants absentee voters to include a copy of their photo ID with their ballot. Last week, supporters of this idea had the opportunity to express their opinion.
They insisted Ohio House Bill 577 it would enhance security and enhance voter confidence. They said the modern requirement doesn’t ask for much – it will simply ensure consistency between in-person voting and mail-in voting.
But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have shown skepticism. They didn’t consider tracking photocopies to be a minor inconvenience. And if changes are needed, someone asked, why aren’t Ohio elections experts asking for them?
Perhaps most pointedly, lawmakers questioned supporters’ justification for safety.
What do you gain by attaching a photocopy of your ID if the voter has already entered their identifying information on the absentee ballot envelope? They noted that election officials would not have the voter standing in front of them to compare with the image.
“Comparable security”
Several supporters of HB 577 are affiliated with the Ohio chapter of the Election Integrity Network. The organization spread false claims about non-citizen voting and was founded by Cleta Mitchell, who played an dynamic role in legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Group Charter of Voting Rights goes even further than HB 577, calling for photo ID to prove “identity, residency and U.S. citizenship” for all votes.
It’s unclear what that would look like in Ohio – a driver’s license doesn’t necessarily prove citizenship, and a U.S. passport doesn’t indicate residency.
Eileen Watts, featured on the Ohio Election Integrity Network website as a founder and board member, he said requiring photo ID for absentee ballots would equate the process to in-person voting.
“The current discrepancy in which mail-in voters only provide an identification number undermines uniformity and trust,” Watts said. “By filling this gap, HB 577 ensures that every ballot receives comparable protections.”
But Watts has reached the same logical dead end as many other proponents in trying to equate two types of voting that necessarily rely on different verification methods.
“We believe we need equal treatment under the law,” she said. “That if someone needs to show a government-issued photo ID to vote in person, so that we can see what that person obviously looks like, the same should be required for voting by mail.”
Showing a photo ID to vote in person, Watts said, means board of elections workers can match the person’s ID against the ID.
This is not possible with a mail-in ballot. As the name suggests, the voter is not there.
Bad actors and identity theft
Marcell Strbich, a Republican running for Secretary of State, presented a case related to identity theft. A former Air Force intelligence officer told the committee that identifying information about Ohioans is available online for a fee.
“Cybercriminals can easily hack into computer systems,” he said, “and then use stolen or purchased information along with a voter’s name and address to register him to vote and request an absentee ballot in Ohio without an excuse on his behalf, unknowingly.”
Strbich said he heard anecdotal reports about how the campaign was going from voters who requested ballots on their behalf. In such circumstances, management matters the first ballot was received.
Requiring voters to attach a photocopy of their ID “would not only improve the integrity issue,” he said, but would make it more hard to impersonate eligible voters.
“We are deterring – deterring – bad actors from exploiting our most vulnerable voters and stealing their ballots and voices for them,” Strbich said.
But while Strbich warned that cybercriminals or identity thieves could exploit stolen information to obtain absentee ballots, HB 577 does nothing to change the process asking ballots.
Dishonest actors who intend to exploit stolen information to request an absentee ballot on someone else’s behalf can still do so — risking a voter fraud charge each time.
The committee chairwoman, state Rep. Sharon Ray, R-Wadsworth, pressed Strbich on the issue.
If everyone’s information is really available on the Internet, she asked, what is the exploit of a photocopy of an ID card?
“Because if you have someone’s driver’s license, you can request an absentee ballot,” she said. “They’ll never see you anyway. What’s the difference with a photo ID?”
Strbich did not respond directly. Instead, he asked, “What’s wrong with creating a process for the board of elections to have access to this information so they can make sure it’s not an outside group impersonating someone?”
But HB 577 doesn’t do that either. Election workers will not download an image of a voter’s ID on their computer to compare it to a copy. Instead, the bill simply penalizes those who fail to attach a photocopy of their ID card.
Under the bill, a ballot is considered incomplete and therefore invalid if there is no copy, as if the voter had not provided his or her address or date of birth. However, ballot verification still comes down to matching the signature and other information on the ballot with documentation in the commission’s files.
As Strbich himself noted, county boards do not have the resources to directly verify driver’s licenses and state IDs.
Strbich is participating in an increasingly tight primary election in which the Ohio Republican Party has decided to endorse current Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague for Secretary of State over Strbich.
At one point, Ray had to remind him that his testimony was not a campaign opportunity, and some GOP members on the panel pressed him about his past voting records.
He admitted he withdrew Democratic ballots in 2005 and 2009 “due to local issues that affected my family” when no Republicans appeared on the ballot. Stbich said he has voted Republican in every election since 2000.
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