Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted
The Democratic Coalition Against Trump has filed a serious FBI complaint against Republican Jon Husted, the Ohio Secretary of State is the top statewide elected official in charge of elections.
They allege Husted is violating the federal Voting Rights Act by failing to distribute nearly 1 million out of 7 million absentee ballots.
Anecdotal evidence shows that even long time voters are not getting Ohio mail away ballots.
Husted’s absentee ballot fiasco in Ohio is impacting literally one out of every seven absentee ballot voters in the state which is indiscriminately disenfranchising voters, leading to this Democratic Coalition complaint to the FBI's Public Corruption program:
Ohio's Secretary of State, Jon Husted, left over a million registered voters off of the mailing list when his office sent out absentee ballots this year. This disadvantages poor, minority, and working class voters who rely on receiving an absentee ballot to cast their votes, and as such violates the Voting Rights Act. On Tuesday it was reported that hundreds of voters had still not received an absentee ballot in the mail, a problem that Husted blamed on the post office. One article even reported that a husband had not received his absentee ballot, while his wife did, even though they had the same voting history.
The Republican party and its presidential nominee have spent most of the election complaining about “rigged’ results, but the GOP controls over 30 state houses, Ohio amongst them.
For his part, Jon Husted blames the US Postal Service entirely:
"It's completely unacceptable. The post office needs to do a better job."
“Blaming the post office for absentee ballots not being sent is like saying my dog ate my homework. Nobody believes that, after Husted limited millions of voters from receiving absentee ballots the post office is to blame,” said Scott Dworkin, Senior Advisor to the Democratic Coalition, “This entire situation is an obvious partisan attack meant to disadvantage minority, poor, and working-class voters who already have a difficult time making it to the polls.”
According to local news reports, 13 percent, or over one million, registered voters did not receive absentee ballots in the mail, which was a decision was made by Husted and his office.
Swing state voters already had to fight to stay registered to vote, long before polls opened in Ohio. Hundreds of thousands of people were illegally purged from the voting rolls by Secretary of State John Husted, who lost a federal court case for illegally unregistering people, simply because they hadn’t voted in the last couple of elections. The Columbus Dispatch reported on October 2nd:
The news release said, “Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted today announced his office will begin mailing absentee ballot applications to voters statewide this weekend.” What it didn’t say was that more than a million of Ohio’s 7.7 million registered voters wouldn’t get the mailing, because Husted’s office had pared the list beforehand.
One who did not receive an application was Al Rosenfield — husband of Peg Rosenfield, elections specialist with the Ohio League of Women Voters — who has cast ballots for 42 straight years. “I was surprised when my wife got an absentee ballot application in the mail, but I did not,” he said. “I have never missed voting in an election since at least 1974.”
The secretary of state’s office said Al Rosenfield was supposed to receive application as well, but acknowledged that some get lost in the mail.
Peg Rosenfield said she and her husband helped residents of Thurber Tower, a residence for seniors, check their voter registrations. Three people said they had not received an application even though a check found their voter registrations were up to date.
“It was found that he was purging people illegally,” said Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper, “he was literally picking people to take off the rolls because they had voted infrequently.”
Federal elections are regulated by Congress under the US Constitution’s elections clause, and state officials who violate those laws can be subjected to serious penalties.
It’s unfortunate that Ohio’s Secretary of State put party above duty, and intentionally purged voter rolls, then failed to deliver his state’s voters their absentee ballots in a timely fashion.
Even with all of those obstacles, Democratic party leaders report a strong early voting turnout and a sense of optimism they say the opposing party’s voter turn out lacks for this year’s presidential election.
Here’s a copy of the Democratic Coalition’s complaint:
Listen to the complete interview with Ohio Democratic Party chairman David Pepper here