Legislation in the Ohio House and Senate would make sweeping changes to how Ohioans vote and how those votes are counted. Despite excellent post-election audits in Ohio and the introduction last year of stringent recent voter photo ID requirements, supporters insist that more needs to be done to ensure elections in the state.
Their demands include legislation to allow manual counting of ballots and recent voting machine requirements that could force counties across the state to replace their existing voting machines. Moreover, there are no certified voting machines that meet the standards set out in the Act, and manual counting has proven to be more timely and less correct than currently existing certified voting machines. The bill would also extend photo ID requirements to absentee voting – requiring voters to include a photocopy of their ID with their completed ballot.
The authors of the project also plan to vote in person. The bill would require county boards to place photographs of voters at the ballot box so that poll workers would not simply compare a photo ID to the person standing in front of them, but also to a photo on file with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
LaRose State’s Ohio Section reported more than 520 cases of non-citizen voter fraud. Only one was legal.
League of Women Voters of Ohio policy manager Nazek Hapasha argued that the measure is rooted in conspiracy theories about non-Ohio voters voting in Ohio elections. Since taking office, Ohio’s secretary of state has addressed more than 500 cases of alleged non-citizen voter fraud. Only one of these cases resulted in charges.
“All of this together,” she said, “opens the door for election deniers to cast doubt on our electoral systems and the credibility and integrity of our electoral system.”
The House version of the proposal, sponsored by state Reps. Bernie Willis, R-Springfield, and Bob Peterson, R-Selina, has already passed two hearings. The Senate bill, sponsored by state Sens. Andrew Brenner, R-Dublin, and Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, has not yet been considered.
In sponsor testimony, Willis cited the growing prevalence of cyberattacks, and Peterson compared the bill’s security measures to updating a computer’s antivirus software. Gavarone and Brenner expressed a similar tone.
“Technology is evolving rapidly, which means our systems must be constantly updated to prevent bad actors from compromising our elections,” Gavarone said in a press release. Brenner added that the bill aims to make Ohio’s elections “as secure as possible.”
Will you pay for it?
The proposal was met with pushback from election officials and county commissioners, largely because of the potential costs. In a written statement, the Ohio County Commissioners Association called the bills “unnecessary, cumbersome and imposes a huge, unfunded mandate on counties.”
State lawmakers allocated about $115 million for recent machines in 2018. According to legislative researchers, it appears that none of them meets the standards set out in the act.
“So that would mean that we would have to replace our voting equipment statewide,” explained Paul Adams, director of the Lorain County Board of Elections. “Assuming we have a supplier that has something certified and also a supplier that can supply it in sufficient quantities.”
In addition to leading the Lorain County Board, Adams also serves as president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials.
Despite these sweeping changes, Adams noted that the bill lacks appropriations — “I called it an unfunded mandate in search of a problem” — and even the $115 million spent by lawmakers last time didn’t cover the full cost of the recent machines.
Moreover, the bill’s safety standards not only cut off current machines in the state, but potentially eliminate all machines. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission sets voluntary standards, and the bill requires every voting machine in Ohio to meet a standard known as VVSG 2.0.
The only problem is EAC has not yet certified a machine that meets this standard.
Adams adds that even assuming it happens tomorrow, county boards still won’t be ready.
“Just because someone gets certified,” he said, “doesn’t mean they’ve already started production and have enough to replace 88 counties in the state of Ohio.”
Election officials also worry about the costs of counting votes by hand. While the bill does not require counties to count votes by hand, Adams argued that such an approach would undermine rather than strengthen confidence. He pointed to a trial hand count in Butler County earlier this year.
The county board collected batches of 50 ballots from the March primary and tasked bipartisan teams with counting the votes. On average, it took teams just over 2 hours to collect 50 ballots. Applying this to their precincts, the report estimates that “counting votes in the smallest polling stations can take more than 9 hours, while in the largest polling stations it can take more than 50 hours.” The authors are quick to point out that everything will go perfectly the first time. On the cost side, the report found that additional supplies and staff would have netted the board more than $827,000.
The accuracy of manual counting has also deteriorated. Counting a total of just 150 ballots, the teams made 8 errors, an error rate of 5.33%. The report shows that more than 10,600 ballots were cast in the county’s 2020 post-election audit. The accuracy was 100%.
Practical effects
Hapasha worries about how regulations on hand counting machines and voting might interact. While this solution “enables” rather than requires counting, it effectively blocks the state’s voting machines.
“And yes, practically speaking, if this were to go into effect, it could actually require a hand count the next day, even though the statute states that it only allows for a hand count,” she explained.
He also has earnest doubts about requiring absentee voters to send a photocopy of their ID card by mail.
“Every election official across the state that I have talked to has told me that with the current methods that we have in place, they have no problem verifying the identity of a mail-in voter,” Hapasha said.
Adams also rejected this idea. “How many people have access to a photocopier at home?” he asked. Adams argued that the requirement would be particularly complex for voters with disabilities and could lead to identity theft.
“I think you’re giving fraudulent people a greater reason to target election mail,” he said, “because they know there’s going to be a copy of your driver’s license inside, which I don’t think people necessarily want to have there.”
They both emphasized that other provisions of the bill may cause significant delays in obtaining election results. First, the bill strips boards of their ability to pre-process absentee ballots before polls close. This preliminary work helps Ohio get election night results much faster. Second, if a voter casts an absentee ballot and later votes on a provisional ballot, the bill directs the commission to count the provisional ballot. This reverses current practice, Adams said, and creates a loophole for voters to change their vote.
“It would encourage organizations and voters to change how they vote if something came up,” Adams said.
With such a broad set of policy changes and less than six months left in the current General Assembly, Hapasha argued that lawmakers do not have enough time to adequately discuss the bill.
“I simply don’t understand how it is possible that the legislature could give this bill the time it needs to go through the legislative process,” Hapasha said. “This makes election administration extremely difficult, time-consuming and more expensive, with little or no additional benefit.”
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