By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.
The Truth Contributor
If we promise as public officials, we must deliver. – Barbara Jordan
Ohio ended Golden Week in 2014, the one-week period when voters could register and vote in a single trip. A federal judge called that cut illegal, citing evidence that Black voters had used that week at several times the rate of white voters, but the Sixth Circuit reversed him and described what remained as “a generous early voting schedule.”
Ohio promises easy voting, but the question is whether the schedule delivers.
Vote early in Lucas County today, and you go to the back door of a county building on West Sylvania Avenue, the county’s only early-voting site. For the first three weeks, it’s open only on weekdays, eight to five.
Defenders point out that Ohio offers 22 days of in-person early voting and that anyone can vote by mail, though a mail ballot has to be requested by October 27 and reach the Board of Elections by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. Still, the window has shrunk from 35 days in 2008 to 27 this year.
Somebody chose those reduced hours, and that somebody’s job is on your ballot.
Who Sets the Clock
The Secretary of State sets the schedule that every county must follow, and the Lucas County Board of Elections can’t change it. The legislature wrote the rules, including ending early voting on the Monday before Election Day.
This year the Secretary of State’s job is open, and every seat in the Ohio House and half the Senate are up.
Easy for Whom?
The Census Bureau asked registered voters why they sat out the 2022 midterms. The most common answer, at 26.5 percent, was a work or school schedule conflict. Eight to five costs the people who work and those who must watch kids or wait for a ride. The only Sunday available for early voting is November 1, from 1 to 5 p.m.
For example, take a home health aide who rides the bus and clocks out at five. For the first three weeks, the early-vote site closes at the hour she leaves work, and evening hours don’t start until October 26.
The Margin
About one in five Black Ohioans voted early in 2008 and 2012, compared with fewer than one in ten white Ohioans, according to the Census survey figures presented in court.
This year the races are tight. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur won two years ago by 2,382 votes, and the latest Times/Siena poll has for U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown up three points in the Senate race, inside the margin of error.
When a few thousand votes can settle a race, how hard the door is to open stops being a side issue. A congressional seat, a Senate seat, Toledo’s school levy will get settled by whoever shows up.
So, vote early. Make sure you bring your ID and bring someone who doesn’t have a ride. Church vans know the way to Sylvania Avenue, and Sunday’s doors open at one o’clock on November 1.
Then take your time with the ballot, all the way down. The Secretary of State and the legislature — the offices that set these rules — are on it.
The clock is on the ballot. Don’t skip that part.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, PhD, at drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org