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This election is going forward with fewer elections workers with those professionals leaving their jobs out of frustration and fear and exploring.

Issue two, a ban on non-citizens voting in the state of Ohio Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler, Ohio's 88 county boards of elections offices have lost a large number of professional elections workers in the last few years, even as they're readying for this year's major election and a bigger one in two years.

Elections workers around the country have been saying the job is stressful, difficult and becoming dangerous.

I talked about how many elections workers have left, but the executive director of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials, Aaron Ackerman.

We don't keep official stats on that, but I can tell you that we do kind of have a feel for it because the secretary of state is required by law to train any new election official that's hired, whether they're hired at the board of Elections or they're appointed as a member of a board of Elections, and so I can tell you that we're getting 50 to 60 new people a year going through that training, which is roughly 10%, 15% of the total number of election officials that are out there.

So it's a big number, considerably larger than I think you're seeing in different industry segments.

And it's a bigger number than would be explained by just attrition or people retiring or anything.

There are reasons for these folks quitting, right?

Sure.

Certainly they're we're we're losing people to attrition just like everyone else is as baby boomers age out and start to retire.

That's certainly been a normal occurrence here in the elections world.

But we know anecdotally, at least as people leave, that we're hearing that there are other reasons behind that.

Most notably, just, you know, it's an extraordinarily stressful, difficult, time consuming job.

And people are being asked to spend copious amounts of time away from their families working really hard.

You layer that on with the increasing complexities of the job and having to manage technology and all of a sudden you know, you're hired to run an election, but you find out that you have to know everything about information technology and cybersecurity and public relations and human resources and budgeting.

And you almost have to be a lawyer to try to figure out what's going on and interpret different court decisions.

So there's a lot that goes into running an election that the public generally doesn't see.

And that's fine.

We want we want it to look easy.

That's our job.

But behind the scenes, there's a lot.

And so when you pile all that on and then you add to the potential threats and the harassment and things that are going on in Ohio and around the country, it's kind of a recipe for what we're seeing right now.

And the threats part, I think, has gotten a lot of attention in other states.

The Department of Justice has been tracking threats to elections.

Workers in several states threatening election workers is taken very seriously.

It's a crime it is a crime.

And I think you saw that the secretary of state just started a new division that is going to start looking into election crimes and I would certainly hope and believe that threatening election officials is going to be something that that new division within the secretary of state's office would be keenly interested in, because it is unfortunately becoming more pervasive.

And we're just now kind of starting to see the physical threats of violence come here to Ohio.

We've largely avoided that in the past.

But just in the last couple of months, I've started to hear from folks that's taking place, and that's unfortunate and it is criminal.

Anecdotally, have you heard from some of these election workers about the frustration that they have?

They are people in their community and to be threatened, to be accused of things that they didn't do.

How frustrating is that for people who are just doing a job?

It's very frustrating.

I mean, we have a wonderful track record, a proven track record in Ohio of running outstanding in elections where a national leader on so many fronts with some of the innovative things that we're doing to protect the vote.

And I do hear from election officials who who will call and say it's just so hard to go to work or receive phone calls questioning your integrity, question your ethics when you know you're doing a great job and the vast majority of the public recognizes that you're doing a good job, but it takes its toll.

And candidly, Karen, that's one of the reasons we're seeing this attrition is because, you know, nobody wants to go to work, do a great job, and then they get yelled at for it.

And that can be frustrating.

We're actually having our training conference this January and we're going to spend a lot of time talking about stress management and mental health and taking care of yourself and how to kind of work through these issues that I think, you know, the nation has to recognize are important not just for elections people, but for the general public.

You know, as Komen has kind of exposed this this mental health crisis that exists in our country.

Election officials have not been immune to that.

And I would say over the past couple of years, they've they've faced some real challenges in that area.

So we're we're thinking about the well-being of our members and how we can make sure that they're taking care of themselves.

But Ackerman said while professional elections workers in Ohio have been leaving, poll workers are still signing up the secretary of state's office reports 40,374 Ohioans have signed up to be poll workers, exceeding the statewide goal by 13%.

84 counties have met the minimum number of poll workers they need.

But 26 counties have not met the goal of 115% of workers needed.

Ohio voters are seeing two ballot issues.

This election.

We covered issue one, requiring courts to consider public safety as one of the factors in setting bail last week.

This week issue to the argument against issue two says this, quote, Unnecessary constitutional amendment is cloaked in fear and false patriotism.

It argues Issue two endangers the freedom of every citizen to vote.

It threatens the long standing ride of 17 year olds who will turn 18 by the general election to vote in primaries.

It locks in a 30 day voter registration period, saying, quote, It's the harshest blackout period in the country and that it hits young voters hardest.

And it claims that issue two is a copycat attack on Ohio by wealthy, secret money, special interests from out of state.

Among those opposed to issue two is Steven Stein, Glass, dean emeritus of the Cleveland Marshall College of Law and an expert on the Ohio Constitution.

It's misleading because if one goes into the ballot booth or one gets your absentee ballot and looks at the ballot, one thinks this is primarily about non-citizens voting in local elections.

But it's actually much more complicated than that.

And the ballot board pretty much failed by a three to two vote, I might add, to provide citizens of Ohio with accurate information about what they were voting on, when really has to go to the language of the proposed amendment to appreciate what I'm saying.

Well, let's start with the concern about the right to vote for some 17 year olds.

You write that the amendment would replace the word every and substitute only a would you say changes the grant of the right to vote to a restriction of the right.

Well, when I asked Secretary of State Franklin Rhodes about this, he said he thinks that could be the subject of future litigation, but he doesn't think that's going to happen necessarily.

Representative Bill cites that he thinks that issues a red herring and, quote, part of the organized effort by the left progressives to obfuscate the issue.

Is there a real concern here that 17 year olds have been allowed to vote in this way, won't be able to anymore?

No, I think they were just sort of the innocent victims of sloppy drafting.

I mean, I can't say whether the rolls or sites or any of these folks got together and said, let's go after 17 year olds.

I just have no evidence to believe that.

I think they wanted to put on the ballot a a solution in search of a problem.

I don't think we have a problem with noncitizens voting noncitizens.

I have not been able to vote in Ohio since the early 19th century.

In fact in 1817.

The Ohio Supreme Court held that the ballot was restricted to citizens that are upheld and 18 09 wore that effect.

I know there's sort of an argument that well that just applies to state elections but cities might suddenly decide they want to turn the ballot over to noncitizens.

And apparently there's there's been some movement in that direction in some places If that was if that was the real concern, all they had to do was amend the home rule provision of the Ohio Constitution and say cities shall not extend the vote in any election to non-citizens.

That would have been a simple, clean, understandable way to do it.

What they did instead is, as you suggested in your question, is they amended language language.

It's been there since 1851 1851 constitution provides that every citizen of the United States of the age of 18 who has been registered to vote blah blah blah is entitled to vote.

So we'll just deal with the 18 year old for a moment.

What they've done is they've taken this grant of the right to vote and made it a restriction by taking out the word every and putting in the phrase only a so it would read only a citizen who was 18 may vote.

That's a, that's a big deal.

Only a couple of words but it's a big deal because constitutions are sensitive documents.

Words matter.

Now Ross says there might be litigation related and there might be litigation on that.

I don't think that answers anything, Seitz says.

It's part this is part of a a left wing.

What is it?

Conspiracy to escape the issue.

I didn't know that I was part of a conspiracy.

I guess I'm a I'm a conspirator on this.

No, I mean, it's just simply the facts and the facts and the law and the ability to read and the ability to take care.

So you know, I think I personally think that they kind of screwed up.

And now being given human nature if you screw up, we have two, two ways to go.

You can admit it.

Heavens to Betsy.

Or you can obfuscate So I think this is obfuscation in return.

Gaslighting, we call it.

So I think it it will have an immediate effect on 17 year olds who had been voting in primaries.

And there may well be litigation, but you don't have to be a rocket science to predict litigation.

As far as registration of voters.

There's currently a 30 day registration requirement in the in the Constitution.

But again, it's a grant.

If the legislature wanted to make registration 45 days they couldn't but they could make it 15 days if they chose to do so under the new language.

I don't think they can.

So I think this proposal has those effects and they don't tell us.

That's what I really find most problematic.

The people are the ones who play an important role in our Constitution and they vote, but they only vote based on the information that they receive.

And the information they received is incomplete.

I want to ask you about the potential consequences that you just suggested there.

There's a potential consequence that you suggest may go against what some Republicans have proposed shortening the time period for voter registration.

You say the amendment would not allow that.

They would not have they would not have the ability to shorten the early voting period.

That's that's how I read it.

I mean, that's what I read.

Only a bare prefatory language So, I mean, if they're talking about it, they haven't been coordinating with their brethren across the hall because it seems to me this amendment would be inconsistent with that.

I mean, I think shortening the period would be it would be a good thing given the technology and given the fact that 30 days there's no magic in 30.

But I think there'd be real tension there if they tried to shorten it after this passes in on the assumption that it will pass.

Do you think the amendment violates home rule Well, it does.

It violates the spirit of home rule, but it doesn't violate the home rule.

You know, legal sense because the proposed amendment also amends the home rule provision of the harm constitution.

So so they've covered that issue.

So there is no home rule violation One last thing.

Why did this come up?

That's a rhetorical not really asking you a question.

I know you ask the questions Perhaps it's something to do with politics.

Shocking.

Shocking, shocking.

Perhaps they thought putting on the ballot a proposal that had a bit of an anti immigrant tone to it might help the cause.

I don't know.

Again, I wasn't in the room, so I don't know what people were thinking.

You'd said earlier that this is a solution in search of a problem and no Ohio cities are doing this.

There were references to how Yellow Springs had talked about doing this, but that was shut down by the secretary of state.

But Representative cited that the Democratic candidate for county executive calls one of the most powerful positions in the state said he is open to noncitizen voting.

So is this a solution in search of a problem or is this something that you think could be potentially coming down the road?

Well, you know, I'm not aware of what the county executive said, but if they're thinking about it and people want to cut that off, then this in broad terms is a rational response.

So to say, you know, you can't do that.

So maybe they have a problem there, but I don't think the main motivation was trying to solve that down the road problem because, you know, there will be litigation.

And I suspect if a county try to extend the franchise to non-citizens excuse me, secretary or lower, those would be involved in the litigation that he described, trying to stop that from happening as apparently did happen with Yellow Springs.

But the timing of this is important potentially in that there are no cities who are doing that.

But what you're doing this but yet this is before voters in this particular election recall.

Isn't that isn't that curious?

So I don't know what what to draw from that other than there's some political motivation going on.

The argument in support of issue two says, quote, allowing non-citizens to vote degrades the value of United States citizenship and is poor public policy.

It says Issue two would ensure change in the Constitution.

To make sure that any future state legislature or any Ohio city or charter county could not extend the right to vote to non-citizens, which it says many US cities have allowed.

One of the sponsors of House Joint Resolution for which put the issue on the ballot is Republican Representative Bill Seitz from Cincinnati.

Issue to simply clarifies the Ohio Constitution so that only United States citizens properly registered to vote are able to vote in state and local elections.

Currently, that is not clear.

Some cities claim that their home rule powers trump our ability to limit the franchise only to citizens.

You've seen that happen in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which changed their charter to allow non-citizens to vote locally.

More recently, you've seen Chris Romaine, who's running for Cuyahoga County executive, being caught on tape saying that if any mayor in Cuyahoga County wishes to extend the franchise to non-citizens, he would stand by that mayor.

We've seen this is a thing that is happening nationally.

New York City, San Francisco, 11 towns in Maryland, two towns in Vermont.

Most recently a month ago, the D.C. City Council voted ten to one to let both legal and illegal aliens vote in Washington, D.C., local elections.

So these bad ideas from the coasts have a way of working their way into the heartland.

So we're trying to be proactive by joining blue states like Colorado and Minnesota and red states like Arizona and Florida in changing our Constitution so that only a citizen is entitled to vote on the Yellow Springs issue.

They did not actually get to vote.

That was stopped by the secretary of state's office.

That's correct.

But it wasn't litigated.

And the argument is that the cities, as you know, have this constitutional power of home rule and they assert the right to use those rights.

To extend the franchise.

Now, that's impractical in the extreme because people would then need two sets of ballots.

Federal law already limits the franchise in federal elections to only United States citizens.

State law is not as clear.

And if you were to allow the locals to extend the franchise to non-citizens, you would have to have two sets of ballots gravely increasing the cost of running elections.

And that's one of the practical problems with this leftist trend that is making its way through the country.

I got to ask you about some of the specifics here.

Sure.

Opponents argue the language would replace the word.

Every in this part of the Constitution with only a small sentence.

Would be only a citizen who was 18 may vote.

They say they could take away the right by some 17 year olds to vote in primaries.

And if they're going to be 18 by the general election.

Now I ask you, a secretive state frankly arose about that at a press conference a couple of weeks ago.

Secretary Lauro said he doesn't think that that's going to happen.

It could be litigated, though.

You said that this is a red herring and an attempt to obfuscate the issue, but it did, doesn't it?

Isn't there some truth to this?

Well, I would argue that it is a red herring for four reasons.

First, it was never the intent of the sponsors of the amendment in the House, in the Senate, and I was one of them to affect the right of 17 year olds who will be 18 by the general to vote in a primary.

No one no to the 18 year old limitation is already in the Ohio Constitution.

That did not prevent the legislature from extending the franchise to 17 year olds in 1981.

Number three even if they're right someone would have to sue after passage of issue two to prevent 17 year olds from voting.

I consider that to be very unlikely it's something we've gotten used to over 40 years.

And number four we checked the numbers only 574 17 year olds voted in the May 2022 primary.

A number that is vanishingly small and would not have affected the outcome of any of the primary elections in a state of 11.7 million people.

When you mentioned the beginning about the the intent of the law when you have the question for judges on do you rule on plain text or do you rule on intent.

Isn't there a possibility that they could rule and say 17 year olds couldn't vote?

I suppose that is a rare possibility.

I will concede that.

But again, for the other reasons I gave, I consider it highly unlikely.

Again, are we going to let this tail wag the larger dog of a looming prospect whereby cities would allow non-citizens to vote in local elections?

That has particularly pernicious results in Ohio because as you know, cities have the power to tax the income of nonresident workers.

And so by extending the franchise to non-citizens in these cities, you would be giving them the right to vote on the taxes that we suburban commuters pay by way of municipal income taxes.

We're one of the few states that allow that, by the way.

But this would not be a good idea to turn that over to non-citizens.

Who absolutely.

Who, after all, can vote in their home country.

Well, it's not like they can't vote.

Go back to your home country and cast your absentee ballot, assuming you're allowed to do that in your home country.

We believe in one man, one vote, not one man, two votes.

And if we were to allow non-citizens to vote locally in Ohio, while at the same time voting in their home country of Germany or Ireland or South Africa, whatever, that one man would get two votes.

And I don't think that's anything that the founders wanted, nor do we.

When you look at the ballot language versus what's going to be in the Constitution, the word the words, at least for 18 year old is in the ballot language, but not in the Constitution.

Is that misleading?

I don't think so.

I mean, our intent again was to establish that we're not trying to upset the right of 17 year olds to vote in a primary if they're going to be 18 by Election Day.

That is the only extension that has been authorized in over 40 years.

And we don't intend to upset that.

Dean Emeritus of Cleveland Marshall College of Law Stephens Dawn Glass, an expert on the Ohio Constitution, thinks that this amendment, though, could also change the window on voter registration.

He says that he thinks it would prevent you from shortening voter registration, which could potentially have an impact on early voting.

Do you see anything in this that would do that?

I think that argument probably does have some merit, though.

That wasn't our intent either.

We have set the registration period at 30 days.

You need to be registered to vote 30 days before the election.

This constitutional language would probably prohibit us from either shortening it or lengthening it.

But there's no move afoot to do either one.

We're perfectly happy with 30 days.

30 Days is a recognized national standard, and if that ends up being constitutionally enshrined then I view that as a bonus for this constitutional amendment.

It's important to note that this constitutional amendment is not just a Republican thing.

That's another canard It passed unanimously in the Ohio Senate to put it on the ballot with the support of all Senate Democrats.

It passed with bipartisan majorities in the House.

Governor DeWine and Governor Candidate Whaley have both endorsed it.

So this is not a Republican versus Democrat thing.

This is about whether we believe in the fundamental idea that you have to be a citizen in order to vote.

It is one of the great prizes of becoming a citizen that you get the right to vote.

It cheapens the value of citizenship.

And we extend that right to non-citizens.

Do you think that this violates home rule or are you addressing that?

What?

It trumps home rule because it makes it crystal clear that on this issue, state law and state constitutional law will prevail.

These cities have certainly wide home rule powers, but we are not going to let them upset the electoral system in the entire state by asserting that their home rule rights Trump are right and the citizens right to change their constitution and make elections a statewide uniform thing.

So it's also said a bill making changes and voting laws would likely go forward during the lame duck legislative session, but it will be skinnier than his plan, which would create an online ballot request system with two forms of ID, would limit ballot drop boxes to just add boards of elections and only for ten days before Election Day and would shorten the window to request early ballots.

So I said negotiations are ongoing with Republicans in the Senate.

But he added that he's considering adding a photo ID requirement to the bill.

Democrats have called cites bill extreme, but it has the support of many Republicans, including Secretary of State Frank La Ropes And that's it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please follow us on the show on Facebook and Twitter.

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

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutuel, providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at ADMET Mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country, Porter Right is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

More at Porter right dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA.org.