COLUMBUS, Ohio – A spokesman for Ohio’s top elections official says an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit over early voting restrictions is aimed at the wrong state.
“The ACLU would be better served to focus on states like New York or Delaware or Michigan or Kentucky where there’s no early voting at all,” Secretary of State Jon Husted’s press secretary Matt McClellan said in a statement.
He called the federal lawsuit “ironic,” citing Husted’s efforts to make voting easier in Ohio.
The suit filed Thursday against Husted and Ohio Attorney General Mike seeks to strike down a 2014 state law that eliminated the so-called “Golden Week,” the first week of early voting when voters can register and cast a ballot on the same day. The suit is also challenging a Husted directive issued this year that eliminated voting hours on Sundays, evenings and on the day before Election Day.
“Together these cuts will impact tens of thousands of low-income voters, elderly voters, student voters and African-American voters who turn to early in-person voting as their best option for casting a ballot,” said Sybil Edwards-McNabb, president of the Ohio Conference of the NAACP.
“Ohio has again taken center stage in the battle over voting rights. Politicians who tamper with people’s fundamental right to vote are being put on notice that they are not going to get away with it,” said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.
McClellan cited Husted’s adoption of no-fault absentee voting, implementation of an online change-of-address system, his advocacy for online voter registration and statewide mailing of absentee ballot applications as examples of Husted’s efforts to make voting easier.