There hasn't been a tremendous amount of good news out of Ohio lately, but this is great. A new, restrictive elections law signed into law by Gov. John Kasich will not be in effect for the 2012 election.
A coalition that wants to repeal a new elections law passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly delivered 318,460 signatures to Secretary of State Jon Husted this afternoon.The Fair Elections Ohio coalition needs about 231,000 valid signatures of registered Ohio voters to qualify for the November 2012 ballot.
President Barack Obama's Campaign for America also assisted in collecting signatures.
The coalition of Democrats, unions, voting rights groups and other organizations is led by former Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. The coalition hopes to block House Bill 194 from taking effect.
House Bill 194 sharply curtails early voting in Ohio, drastically cutting the timeframe for early in-person voting to 16 days from 35 days and preventing counties from mailing absentee ballot applications to residents. Making election day itself easier, it eliminates the requirement for poll workers to help voters find their right precinct.
Should enough of the signatures be deemed valid (and since they have over 80,000 extras, that shouldn't be a problem), the law won't take effect until and unless the repeal referendum fails in the 2012 election. For their part, Fair Elections Ohio is going to continue the petition drive.
Brian Rothenberg, Executive Director of ProgressOhio and spokesman for Fair Elections Ohio said the coalition will continue collecting signatures while the county boards are counting to ensure there ultimately will be enough for the November 2012 referendum on the election law.
Thus, Republicans' hopes that this voter suppression effort could help them out in Ohio in 2012 have been thwarted. They'll probably come up with something else by November 2012 to try to steal the vote, but this one didn't work.