By JULIE CARR SMYTH Associated Press, and staff
COLUMBUS — A high-stakes August special election with national political implications is upending local election offices across Ohio, as already stressed election workers are suddenly faced with a mountain of logistical challenges after Republican lawmakers backtracked on their own law.
Ohio boards of elections began mailing ballots to active-duty military and overseas voters on Friday. The deadline to register to vote is July 10 with early voting beginning the following day.
Officials have to lure poll workers away from vacations, relocate polling places booked for summer weddings, maintenance or other events, and repeatedly retest ballot language after the state’s high court found errors.
Aaron Sellers, spokesperson for the Franklin County Board of Elections in Columbus, said the county will use only 282 voting locations, rather than its usual 307, displacing about 7% of voters.
“We had 25 locations that could not accommodate us, due to resurfacing floors, church camps, Bible studies, those types of things,” he said.
To attract people who might be planning August vacations, Franklin County voted this month to increase pay for its poll workers. Sellers said the $134 stipend for working Election Day is set by the state, but the county election board was able to bump poll workers’ allowances for training time and set-up duties.
The tight timeframe was imposed by Republican lawmakers, who reversed a new law that had taken effect in January to eliminate August elections. In May, they added the Aug. 8 special election for a measure that seeks to make it harder to amend the state’s constitution. If passed, the amendment would raise the threshold for passing future constitutional changes from a simple majority, as it’s been for more than a century, to 60%.
Republicans’ immediate goal is to make it harder for voters to pass an abortion rights amendment that is in the works for November.
Other brewing constitutional amendments also could be affected, including efforts to legalize recreational marijuana, increase the minimum wage, reform Ohio’s redistricting system and limit vaccine mandates.
Changing ballot language has been another challenge for local election boards. Initial wording approved by the state ballot board was found to be erroneous by the Ohio Supreme Court, which ordered it rewritten.