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No extensions for the process to draw new congressional and state legislative maps for now.

And new bills are coming from Republicans to make changes and restrictions on election laws, which Democrats say will suppress the vote.

All this weekend, the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio, I'm Karen Kasler Ohio voters won't be asked to move the deadlines for drawing new maps after U.S. Census data arrives late in mid-August.

Republican Senate President Matt Huffman had wanted an extension put on the August ballot, but lawmakers needed to approve that this week.

And Democrats said they'd rather the Ohio Supreme Court decide on an extension.

New rules require minority party buy in from maps to last 10 years.

Hofmannsthal says he expects a map for Ohio's new congressional delegation to be reduced by one to 15 to get that 10 year approval.

But he doesn't think there's enough time to reach agreement with Democrats on how to draw maps for the Ohio House and Senate.

So those could be four year maps.

Ohio has joined the list of forty seven states where Republicans want to make changes to voting laws after the 20 20 election.

Veteran conservative Republican Representative Bill Sites of Cincinnati says he doesn't want to overturn those results, which he says were fraud free in Ohio.

But he says he has concerns about situations in other states.

President Biden won, though former President Trump won Ohio.

But sights along with freshman Republican Sharon Ray of Wadsworth, introduced a bill on Thursday that would limit counties to one secure ballot.

Dropbox for 10 days before the election and not the full four week period.

Eliminate in-person voting the day before the election, though those hours could be reallocated.

Create online absentee ballot requests requiring two forms of ID instead of one.

Move up the absentee request deadline from three days before the election to 10 days before require all early ballots to have security envelopes to be counted and restate a ban that's already in place and state law on ballot harvesting by saying only direct family members or election workers under certain circumstances can collect ballots.

This week I talked with Representative Seitz about the bill he'd be sponsoring with freshman Republican Representative Sharon Ray of Wadsworth.

The only reason we ever gave authority for Dropbox's was last year because the covid cowards were too afraid to get out of their car or walk into the body and hand on the ballot.

So last year we said, OK, we get it.

If you're too scared to walk into the bouy, you can use a drop box at the bomb site.

So now we're saying even if there's no pandemic, you can use a drop box at the bomb site.

And that kind of makes up for the elimination of in-person voting on Monday because the procrastinators who are worried about not getting their ballot postmarked in time will be able to drive down on Monday and put it in the Dropbox.

If that's what floats their boat, I would suggest they might want to think about in-person voting on Election Day.

I'm old enough to remember when we had Election Day, it wasn't an election week.

It was an election month.

It was an election year.

We didn't have Kroger voting, which is what I think the Democrats want to get to.

Just like if you want to go to Kroger at two a.m. and pick up a quart of milk and a loaf of bread, you can do it.

Well, that's not that's not the way elections should be run.

Too much opportunity for fraud, too much opportunity to raise costs to our local boards of elections, which are funded by our counties.

So I'm trying to be mindful of what the counties have asked for and what the secretary of state has asked for.

The Senate will be introducing a bill very shortly.

I'm told that it may take a few more steps than our bill takes, but I don't really know what's going to be in that bill.

And I know that some of my colleagues would like even sharper reductions in the the whole program.

They want to eliminate, for example, no excuse absentee voting.

Our bill doesn't do that.

We've had no excuse absentee voting since two thousand five.

They want to cut back on the number of days from the current twenty eight days down to like fourteen days, which isn't necessarily a bad idea.

Even Nancy Pelosi thinks you only need fourteen days in her famous H.R.

one for the Democrats bill that she's pushing.

But I'm not going that far.

We're trying to come up by a joint sponsor.

Representative Ray and I are trying to come up with a balanced bill that increases access in certain ways and improves the security of the election process in other ways.

You I want to ask you about a couple of the things that you just said there, but you were quoted in a post written by my colleague at WVXU in Cincinnati, Howard Wilkinson, saying, The worst thing I have ever done was 15 years ago when I voted for no excuse absentee voting in the early voting period.

You think that that was the worst thing that you've ever done, was voting for that in 21 years?

That was the one vote I would take back, because for one thing, if you remember when we did that, we actually created a situation in which people could register to vote and vote on the same day, thereby creating no opportunity for folks to ascertain whether that registration was even valid.

But that's been taken back by the to get that back.

I took that back and it was hell on wheels trying to take it back.

But we did.

Yes, we did.

We got rid of the so-called Golden.

About seven or eight years ago, as time as memory serves, but we created too large of a window to vote.

Is that why this bill?

Why why you're putting this bill out there now?

No, that's not why I'm putting it out there now.

If I wanted to if I wanted to truly take back my vote from 2005, we'd go back to Election Day, not election week, not election month.

I think that ship has sailed.

I think it would be too big of a step to go back on all of that.

And I'm not proposing to do that.

But I will say that when you create 28 day windows of early voting, you are increasing the cost to all of the campaigns because they have to work that much harder and earlier to get their message out.

You are foreclosing people from changing their mind because oftentimes presidential debates happen in the last couple of weeks and people who voted twenty eight days out may have been swayed by what was said in the last two presidential debates.

Want to change their vote?

You can't do that.

OK, so it is not an unmitigated blessing that we have all of this early voting, not to mention when you're creating voting on Saturday and Sunday, do you think those election workers are doing that as part of their regular 40 hour week?

No, that's an overtime expense.

OK, so as we have bent over backwards to let people vote for different ways in person early on Election Day, OK, drop boxes or by mail, Fawwaz, I mean, we've made it pretty darn easy.

Well, you've also put some things in here that advocates say would make it harder.

For instance, the online voting absentee ballot application process, it's easier than printing out an application, mailing it and waiting for it to come back, that sort of thing.

But you're requiring two forms of ID.

Well, that's exactly right, because when you apply for something online, there's no room for a signature.

We'll know currently when you apply for an absentee ballot, you have to have one form of I.D.

and a signature if you use the paper.

Since we are giving people the option to get rid of the paper, we need two forms of I.D.

We already have online voter registration and that requires two forms of I.D.

So it's very important in this bill that we're trying to encourage people to use their driver's license or their state issued I.D.

as the first and preferred form of I.D.. Why?

Because with the advent of real I.D.

driver's licenses, we're going to know that those folks are actually citizens of these United States.

And let me tell you, there are some Democrats that think it's just fine and dandy that non-citizens can vote in United States elections.

I don't think the public is ready for that.

But by having real ID, driver's license.

All right.

Or a state issued ID that follows the real ID process, you're going to have a real solid check on citizenship.

We cannot access the Social Security Administration's database.

We can't do it.

John Husted, ask Obama's people back in the day to do it.

They said no so I could write down my list for Social as one, two, three, four.

And there would be no way for them to bounce that off the NSA's database to figure out if that's my real number or not.

Now, some Democrats are saying that they're concerned about the pushing back of the deadline to apply for absentee ballots to 10 days before, not four days before the Saturday before the election, three days before, three days before, and also the elimination of voting in-person on the Monday before the election, which you mentioned before.

They said that that really limits people.

It's shortening that window to early vote.

Well, no one, like I say on the Monday, they've been asking to eliminate Monday for a long time.

Number two, they'll have a Dropbox option on Monday that they didn't have in any of the year's 18 03 through 2019.

OK, so I don't buy that argument.

As far as the ten days.

Let me tell you something.

The United States post office informed Leros in writing, We think it should be 15 days.

15 days as the cutoff for you to get your absentee ballot request in, if you wait to mail in your absentee ballot request until the Saturday before the election, how in the world is the body going to get that ballot to you by the Monday before the election?

They're not.

OK, so we're moving it to 10 days.

Why 10 days?

Because we give people 10 days after the election for their ballots to come trickling in as long as they're postmarked by the Monday before the election.

We we recognize that the post office might take 10 days to get it back.

And we give people 10 days.

If you got a postmark of November two, the elections, November three, they've got till November 12 for their ballot to trickle back in using the postal service.

So 10 and 10, it's very symmetrical.

You mentioned Secretary of State Frank Leros, who has said that, quote, We ran the most successful election we ever had in twenty twenty.

There's been no widespread voter fraud.

The Washington Post says it's only counted 16 incidents of voter fraud, not in Ohio, and that's one for every 10 million votes cast.

So why make it arguably harder to vote when there is no voter fraud, at least not from the twenty twenty?

First of all, we don't know that there was no voter fraud.

We don't know what we don't know.

These kinds of measures are important to beef up our system.

The concept of two forms of ID.

Most companies require all of their employees to use two factor authentication to access the company's email system.

OK, hello.

This is nothing new.

All right.

So all of this caterwauling about hard to vote is a joke.

They should take their complaints to Delaware, where Joe Biden is from.

And when all that we're all these big WOAK corporations are headquartered, they have no early voting.

They have no no excuse absentee voting in Kentucky.

They just approved three days of early voting.

We have twenty eight in New Jersey.

They just approved big Democrat state, New Jersey.

They just approved nine days of early voting.

We have twenty eight.

What are these people talking about?

They are they are partizans.

They want to go to Kroger voting.

They want non-citizens to be able to vote.

They don't want anybody to find any fraud.

And if you don't have systems that will detect fraud, you won't find it.

Leros has said, though, that he wants a thoughtful approach to this, that maybe now is not the right time because so many people are inflamed about voter laws and he's concerned about partizan worries on both sides.

No, no.

Leros Leros has said he wants this now because whenever we try to pass an election bill 90 days before the election, people say, well, you're trying to game the system.

So this is about as early as we could get something going and still be far away from a consequential election.

Right.

So, you know, I've been working with his office for months now on this.

This was not something I just dreamed up last night, last night.

And I've been working with Aron Ackerman, who is the legislative liaison for the election officials and others.

So, you know, this is this is a thoughtful bill.

He does support the bill.

Leros supports the bill.

So when you say you've been working with others, does that include, say, the League of Women Voters?

No, because the League of Women Voters is nothing but a partizan left wing shill.

The League of Women Voters, the League of Women Voters has gone off the deep end.

They are relentlessly liberal.

They have fought us on issue after issue.

They waded into issues like House Bill six, which doesn't have a D thing to do with voting.

No, I don't listen to the League of Women Voters.

No, I don't.

There was a bill, a draft supposedly that had circulated on social media that had said that you were proposing a bill to eliminate Dropbox's and do some other things.

You and others have said that that was an old bill.

But I'm wondering, did criticism of that really affect what you were trying to do here?

And no, no, what what leaked out was was a very preliminary draft.

We were already several drafts up ahead of that.

So I didn't care about that as much as I told you when we last talked.

I have heard immunity to the anguished cries of the organized left.

Some of Seitz's claims about Democrats and voting laws need rebuttal and further exploration.

I talked with Representative Brid Rose Sweeney, a Democrat of Cleveland.

Representative cites claim that Democrats want voting anytime day or night, which he called Kroger, voting that you want non-citizens to be able to vote and that you don't want anyone to find voter fraud.

So your reaction from as from the Democratic perspective.

Yes.

I appreciate you having me.

Or today, I you know, what we want from my perspective is what the people want and what people want is to be able to freely and safely cast their ballot, regardless of where they come from or even who they vote for.

And I think what we have here are some GOP lawmakers who are trying to divide us with absurd allegations, possibly to distract from what their real motivations are for bringing forth some of the measures they're trying to do here, representing sides who said that Ohio's voting laws are good, that other states would do well to emulate what Ohio's done, but that they can always be improved.

And I'm just wondering what you're most concerned about from what you've heard.

Yeah, well, I agree with him.

There is plenty of things that we can improve in Ohio, but I don't see a lot of those in the proposals that we've seen.

Again, we don't have the actual bill language.

But when I'm from Cuyahoga County and when I saw, you know, we have nearly one million voters and when we saw all the hundreds and hundreds of people lined up to early vote and to have access to our one Dropbox for, again, nearly one million people, I don't know why you look at that or who is looking at that and says, you know, we need to do so, have less days to access that Dropbox or, you know, we're going to eliminate one of the busiest, most used and best options for voters of early day the day before.

And so, you know, you do do good things here.

And so I would be happy to work with anyone to, again, ensure that anyone who wants to, regardless of where they come from, can freely and safely cast a ballot.

And I do not think the provisions I have seen get us to that point.

Indeed, in Cuyahoga County, you had lines that wrapped all the way around the building and even backed up toward the freeway that runs through downtown Cleveland.

They were really kind of shocking pictures, I think, for a lot of people.

Yes.

And I think the important thing to note about that, it wasn't cars backed up on the freeway.

It was actually people being, as you know, I mean, really like putting their life in danger to stand in line for hours to accomplish that.

And so there are simple, easy should not be controversial ways, expanding drop boxes.

You know, we can work together to find the you know, the best number we have are, you know, neighboring states such as Michigan that has 700 Dropbox's and they have seven million people.

We get one per county.

So we have eighty eight Dropbox's for eleven point seven million people.

Ohio voters expect better from us.

And we have the capabilities to have laws that are inclusive and to making sure that anyone who wants to cast a ballot can represent the sites.

Also says he regrets in his twenty one years here in the legislature voting for the expansion of early voting.

It's maybe the biggest regret he has the vote that he would like to take back.

He said he'd prefer to go back to a single day of voting and not, as he calls it, Kröger, voting, voting any time, any twenty four hours essentially during that period.

He says that costs county boards of elections money and also cost campaigns money.

So I would say, you know, as politicians, we work for the people and we know what voters want.

They like options.

Voting is important to making a having a healthy democracy.

And when we allow it to have early voting, to have drop boxes, to having these different options, we see more people being able to participate, which is anyone who was elected by this process.

You want as many people to vote as possible.

And so, you know, we are a fortunate state.

And I, I would say that it's a little bit more money.

But, you know, we have a very robust budget and is by no means the thing that is really weighing us down as a state in terms of financial prosperity.

Democrats are the minority in the House and the Senate.

So you really can't do a whole lot about this.

What are you going to do?

Well, I think that when you're talking about people's most fundamental right, you know, we have the people on our side businesses and we've seen this in other states as well, although we don't have the numbers, we have the people on our side.

And those people are also in, you know, districts across the state that maybe Democrats don't represent.

I'm fighting for Democrats or Republicans, for people who don't ever want to vote for me.

I want to be here because everyone had the chance to vote.

And that's how we get the best people in office.

I also asked Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, about Science's claims that her organization is a, quote, partizan left wing shill and, quote, relentlessly liberal.

You know, I think that's an interesting characterization.

A lot of our members are Republican.

We have Republican and Democrat members, including some former lawmakers who served in the Ohio House as Republicans.

We also have been working on behalf of voters actually in opposition sometimes to Democrats and Republicans.

So, you know, our redistricting work actually started when Democrats were the ones doing the partizan gerrymandering.

And so our 100 year history means that we are fiercely nonpartisan.

Karen, my.

Rules are as strong as yours, I can't donate to candidates, I vote, I don't vote in primaries.

You know, the idea of beyond reproach is very important to us and to our board.

I know you haven't seen the specifics of his bill yet, but can you give me an overall impression?

He says Ohio has voting laws that other states would do well to emulate, but those can be improved upon.

What are you most concerned about?

And I'm also concerned about the possibility of another bill that might be coming out of the Senate that could potentially go further than what representative cites Bill does.

Yeah, Kiran, I think you're right that first we don't really know till we see the language.

So even those things that are supposedly something I would like, I can't know.

But I will say this.

Ohioans must have the freedom to vote in a way that they choose.

So every eligible voter in Ohio, especially rural Ohioans, when we cut early voting and we drop boxes, it actually primarily hurts senior citizens, rural voters, people with disabilities.

And so those those spots are not are nonstarters for us, cutting early voting, cutting, cutting Dropbox's access.

Those are freedoms that Ohioans need to really cast their ballot.

And let's keep in mind that elections officials and poll workers work across the aisle to make sure that votes are counted and that the entire system is secure.

We don't have a problem with security in Ohio.

We do have a problem with an equal access.

If we think about only having one early vote center and really reducing drop boxes.

Representative sites also says he, out of twenty one years of votes, he regrets voting for the expansion of early voting the most and that he'd prefer to go back to a single election day of voting and not what he calls Kroger voting, voting at two o'clock in the morning or whenever.

And he says that costs the extensive early voting opportunities that Ohio has actually cost boards of elections and campaigns money.

So I think this is interesting.

So first off, let's be clear that you can't vote at Kroger and you can't vote at two a.m.

There are limits to when and where you can vote.

And that's actually part of the point.

But, Kiran, the big thing that changed with the early vote is actually that early voting is also now a lot easier.

Let's remember in 2004 where we had lines across the state that were four hours, sometimes even longer.

And by expanding that, the time that someone can vote, we've actually been able to transition more individuals off of Election Day.

That helps an Election Day voter who doesn't have the same lines.

It also helps those who need the freedom to vote on a different day because they can't get off work or maybe they're a caretaker or they have children in school.

And that election Tuesday just doesn't work for them.

So this is an option that works for everyone and works in everyone's behalf.

Site said in our interview that his fellow Republican secretary of state, Frank Leros, supports his bill.

My statehouse news bureau colleague Andy Chow spoke to Leros about that.

There are groups out there that have accused legislators of voter suppression in other states.

It almost seems like the political climate around the issue of elections is pretty heated.

It's pretty tense at this point in other states.

What do you think Ohio should do to sort of address those concerns, to reach like what you said, hopefully a bipartisan agreement?

You're right, Andy.

The environment around elections issues is really tense right now, and it's been stoked by partizans on both sides of the aisle.

And that is truly unfortunate.

Right.

And I I would actually say that it's irresponsible.

Now, you've got this tendency on the right sometimes to hype and claim that there's widespread voter fraud when in reality voter fraud is exceedingly rare.

But the flip side of that, and just as damaging, is that you have this tendency on the left to hype and overemphasize voter suppression when in reality that's exceedingly rare as well.

And here's why that's so irresponsible.

When, when, when when politicians on the left and the right sort of push the hyperbole button over and over again by by claiming widespread fraud or widespread suppression, they're doing so for self-serving reasons.

It motivates human behavior and causes people to show up at their rally or click the donate button or whatever.

The thing is that they're trying to motivate people to do.

But the damaging result of that is it causes the average person to lose trust and faith in the process.

Ohioans should know that we have an honest process that is trustworthy and whether your favorite candidate wins or loses, you know that it was an honest contest.

But at the same time, Ohioans also should know that it is accessible and easy to vote.

And if you don't vote in Ohio, it's because you've chosen not to vote.

There's really no good excuse for not voting in Ohio because we make it so easy here.

And so this this partizan rhetoric about widespread fraud and widespread suppression really only corrodes the trust and faith that people should rightfully have in our process.

And again, that's damaging for democracy.

And so it's irresponsible for both sides to do that.

And that's it for this week.

Please check out the Ohio Public Radio and Television State House News Bureaus website at statenews.org.

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And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

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