(Columbus, OH, Friday, May 14, 2021) – The Ohio Legislature recently introduced HB 294, a 174-page anti-voter bill. All Voting is Local Ohio believes the legislature is continuing a troubling trend of restricting access to the ballot that threatens to exclude Black, Brown, young, and low-income voters.

Kayla Griffin, campaign state director for All Voting is Local Ohio discusses the restrictions in the bill, such as:

• Limits on drop boxes – the limits are different but the effect is the same: one ballot drop box location per county for a shorter time frame;
• Eliminates one of the busiest final three days of early voting which is one of the busiest – Monday;
• Eliminates a week of mail ballot request access making us more restrictive than 45 other states;
• Locks out young people from the online mail ballot application system by requiring TWO forms of ID, one being a photo ID that huge numbers of young people don’t have; and
• Ban public offices paying return postage even stricter than current law.

Provisional ballot usage would decrease if Ohio expanded early voting and vote by mail options — the very things that this new legislation is attempting to restrict. The demographics listed should not have to work harder to have their voices heard and their vote count.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a record six million Ohioans voted in the 2020 general election. Of the 2.47 million voters who cast ballots on Election Day, 154,675 were asked to cast a provisional ballot, and of those, more than 24,000 were ultimately rejected.

A recent report examines these disparities and offers recommendations about how Ohio can adopt policies that increase the use of Vote-By-Mail (VBM), expand the use of early voting options rates and decrease provisional ballot use so that all voters can make their voices heard – the very things that the proposed HB294 will restrict. The passage of HB294 will make the aforementioned groups have to work harder to have their votes counted.

All Voting is Local fights to eliminate needless and discriminatory barriers to voting before they happen, to build a democracy that works for us all. It is a collaborative campaign housed at The Leadership Conference Education Fund, in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation; the American Constitution Society; the Campaign Legal Center; and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. For more information about All Voting is Local, visit https://allvotingislocal.org and follow them on Twitter @votingislocal.