COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Ohio lawmakers are working through a multi-billion-dollar transportation budget which now also includes a provision about registering to vote.
“We want to study that a little bit more,” Chair of the Ohio Senate Transportation Committee Tom Patton (R-Strongsville) said.
The budget, as of now, has a provision to require the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) to supply the secretary of state with data necessary to conduct monthly reviews of the voter registration database and requires that a person present proof of U.S. citizenship before the BMV can register someone to vote.
How Ohio lawmakers are trying to change marijuana rules“Ohio's got about eight million registered voters,” Ohio Sen. Kent Smith (D-Euclid) said. “We've got it just fantastically low levels of fraud, so is this really a problem? Is this a good fix to that problem? Is this a cost-effective fix? Are we putting the fix at the right place?”
“I think it is necessary,” Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) said. “I think even one case of voter fraud is too many. And so, I think, especially when we’re talking about the right to vote, it’s something that we should protect pretty vigilantly.”
Why is this in the transportation budget? Spokesperson Ben Kindel, for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, said these changes were not brought to the secretary’s office before being adopted into the bill.
“It’s always our preference to collaborate on changes to election law before they’re introduced,” Kindel wrote. “That wasn’t the case here, so we’re reviewing the proposals as quickly as possible so we can better inform lawmakers on exactly how these changes would impact Ohio’s unique system of election administration. We don’t yet have a formal position at this time.”
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Chair of the Ohio House Finance Committee Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) said a lot of members requested these amendments and he said they often address BMV policy in the transportation budget.
“Verifying citizenship before having people register is good public policy, and it’s become clear that a lot of the people who register illegally do so through the BMV because they get asked if they want to register and assume they’re eligible because they were asked,” Stewart said.
It is protocol at a BMV to ask people getting an ID if they are registered and if they want to register to vote. According to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, 28.6% of Ohio’s eight million registered voters did so at the BMV, as of November 2022.
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Smith said that while it might be worth discussing, putting it in the transportation budget seems misplaced.
“This probably should be standalone legislation that we could have a discussion about and again, flesh out whether or not we need additional to requirements to make sure that Americans are voting in Ohio elections,” he said. “My guess is they are, even with the current system, so this might be a waste of time and money. I think the problem largely doesn't exist, but again, why are we trying to find solutions to the problem in a transportation budget?”
So, will these ideas stay in the transportation budget? That remains to be seen. The budget is in the Ohio House right now, so McColley said he does not want to make any predictions about what will happen by the time the Senate gets it, and it heads to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk.
“We’ll see,” he said. “I’m not going to go and make any comments on what’s going to stay in and what isn’t going to stay in when it comes over here, but generally, my thoughts are that I don’t think it’s a bad policy.”
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