The Democrats have their first official candidate running for statewide office other than the governor’s race.
Democratic Rep. Kathleen Clyde of Kent is the first Democrat to announce her bid for Secretary of State in 2018, and really the first Democrat to announce a run for any down-ticket race.
Clyde wants to expand voting hours and automatically register people to vote. She’s been a long-time opponent of aggressively removing names from voter rolls and throwing out ballots with slight discrepancies.
“There are elections every year that are decided by one vote. Certainly when you are purging people’s votes or not counting all the ballots, that could mean the difference in those very close races,” she said.
So far Republican Rep. Dorothy Pelanda of Marysville is the only announced Republican candidate for Secretary of State, although Sen. Frank LaRose of Summit County has floated the idea.
