Ohio Secretary of State John Husted recently issued a decision to restrict early voting in all counties to weekdays only. This has some people concerned as to the possible effect on voter turnout in low-income and minority communities. Not so one Repubican election board member who admitted thus in an email to the local paper:
Doug Preisse, chairman of the Republican Party in Franklin County, which contains the city of Columbus, admitted in an email to the Columbus Dispatch that black voters would now have a more difficult time voting:Yes! Fair and reasonable!I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine. Let’s be fair and reasonable.Preisse was one of the board of elections members who blocked Democratic efforts in Franklin County to expand voting hours to evenings and weekends. According to the Dispatch, he called claims of unfairness “bullshit. Quote me!”