How to beat the Ohio voter suppression law

When I first heard about State of Ohio’s H.B. 159, I was truly upset at the possible implications as to a possibly covert way of suppression opposition voters.  Because of that.  I felt the need to comment on it but before I did, want to get a look at the law myself.  Below you will find the law as introduced which means it may or may not be the one enacted either way I found it at www.legislature.state.oh.us/analysis.cfm?ID=129_HB_159&ACT.   I was led to believe that it was an attack on minorities, seniors and the poor to keep them from voting in the 2012 election and beyond.   While it does not appear to be that drastic, there is a portion of it every one of us should be aware of.

H.B. 159*

129th General Assembly

(As Introduced)

Reps.     Mecklenborg and Blessing

BILL SUMMARY

·         Generally requires a person who appears to vote on the day of an election or to vote an absent voter's ballot in person to provide photo identification.

·         Permits an elector who votes an absent voter's ballot other than in person to continue to use other types of identification that are acceptable under current law, such as a government document, paycheck, or utility bill.

·         Revises the documents that are considered "photo identification" for Election Law purposes.

·         Establishes a process for an elector who cannot afford photo identification to receive an Ohio identification card free of charge.

·         Permits an elector who has a religious objection to being photographed to vote a provisional ballot in person upon the execution of an affirmation to that effect.

·         Removes an obsolete reference to an election document that is no longer produced.

After looking at the entire introduced H.B. 159 the only thing that I have a few reservations with would be this part of it “The Registrar, by rule, must establish standards to determine whether individuals are able to pay the fees for a state identification card.  An application for a free state identification card must be accompanied by such documentary evidence of income and expenses as the Registrar may require by rule, to determine the individual's ability to pay those fees.”  The reason for my reservation would be that it would be totally up to whom ever were in charge to determine what documents were needed and given the final say as to who would be allowed to vote or not.  Because we all know that power can corrupt, this may be a little too much power for one person and may still effect the outcome implied in the presentation of this story.

The solution is having the board of elections issue a photo voter’s registration card instead of the paper ones like in my state of Illinois.  Seeing that the rationale for this law was to prevent voter fraud and the numbers say that there have only been 4 voter fraud cases out of 9 million voters, the time and money spent on this bill could have been better used for job creation.  The solution could also be taken a few steps further if the new photo voter’s registration card was similar to a credit card with the strip containing all of the voters’ information and the voting machines equipped with a card reader that the voter swipes to vote would probably go a very long way in tackling this so-called voter fraud epidemic that seems to be sweeping through Ohio and may spread to other states.  Just my opinion and attempt at humor but if you start seeing this idea take off, please notify this author immediately.