COLUMBUS – Tuesday is Election Day in Ohio – again.
Polls open 6:30 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Voters may experience a feeling of déjà vu when they cast ballots in “Primary 2.0.”
Because of an ongoing court battle over redistricting, state legislative races were not included on the ballot in May, so a federal court ordered a second primary election on August 2nd.
“When we went to the polls in May we did not have maps for our state races, so we have to go and complete the process,” Kayla Griffin, Ohio State Director of All Voting is Local, said in an interview for “Perspective.”
What to bring when you vote
Ohio accepts any of these forms of ID:
- Ohio driver’s license
- utility bill
- cell phone bill
- bank statement
- government check or paycheck with name and current address
Source: Common Cause Ohio
The litigation stemmed from the still-unresolved effort to redraw legislative boundaries, a process carried out every 10 years following the completion of the U.S. Census. Courts have repeatedly ruled that maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Ohio Redistricting Commission are gerrymandered to favor the GOP.
Maps for congressional and statewide races, including governor, were approved for the May primary but after four sets of district maps were rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court, Griffin says a federal court ordered the second primary for General Assembly races.
“There was back-and-forth with the courts on whether or not the maps were constitutionally approved and the court found that they weren’t on the state level. In order to have a second primary, the maps were taken before the federal court and the federal court and the court said that the third district maps would stand and that is what we are operating on,” Griffin said.
The confusion hurt voter turnout in May, as early vote requests were down 40 percent compared with the 2018 election, Griffin said.
“We looked at the previous midterm elections for the last three to four years before cycles. And this one was the lowest that we’ve seen,” she said.
The Ohio Secretary of State’s Office estimates the second primary will cost $20 million.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced that 142,989 were cast during Ohio’s early voting period.