Election Day is less than two weeks away. Ohioans continue to cast ballots early by mail or in-person. This weekend and next, boards of elections will offer the only in-person weekend voting hours on Saturday and Sunday.
According to the early voting dashboard on the Ohio Secretary of State's website, more than 1-point-2 million early ballots have been cast—the majority of those in person.
Board of elections have their hands full, but adding to the workload is the high number of voter registration challenges being filed. Elections officials say the number of challenges is unprecedented. In Wood County alone, the elections board received challenges to 16,000 voter registrations. They were all filed by one person. They all must be investigated.
We will begin Friday’s Reporters Roundtable we will talk over some of the voting issues officials are contending with as we get closer to Election Day.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose will weigh in on a dispute involving the residency of U.S. Representative Emilia Sykes, an Akron Democrat, after the Summit County Board of elections deadlocked 2-2 along party lines. They were voting on an activists' challenge that claims Sykes does not reside at the Akron address she lists on her voter registration.
Voting rights organizations are concerned that recently naturalized citizens will be disenfranchised from voting in Ohio either due to poll workers' confusion or because of hurdles they say Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose's office has created. Naturalized citizens are citizens of the United States and have the same right to vote. But concerned groups say the state's photo ID law, and a new form put out by LaRose, may present difficulties for them should their status be challenged.
This week Attorney General Dave Yost announced indictments in illegal voting cases in the state -- a total of 6 people. More than 8 million are registered to vote. Three people in Franklin County and one each in Cuyahoga, Summit and Portage counties are accused of voting illegally as non-citizens in past elections. The indictments amount to less than 1% of the 600 cases the secretary of state very publicly referred to the attorney general. And the person indicted in Cuyahoga County has been dead for two years.
Akron City Council approved construction of a waste transfer on the city's east side despite community opposition and a call to delay the vote. The 14-acre site will be a transfer point for local waste to be handed off to larger trucks for transport out of Akron.
The administration of the Akron Public Schools is seeking to remove two police officers who serve as security at the Firestone Community Learning Center after one of the officer hit a student while subduing him. Video of the incident prompted the schools' action.
A Hamilton County judge has struck down permanently Ohio's six-week "heartbeat bill" abortion ban. Judge Christian Jenkins said the abortion rights amendment approved last year by voters renders the ban unconstitutional.
Guests:
-Abigail Bottar, Reporter, Ideastream Public Media
-Conor Morris, Education Reporter, Ideastream Public Media
-Karen Kasler, Statehouse News Bureau Chief, Ohio Public Radio/TV
