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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2011 > March > 04 > Entry
Editorial: Online registration a good idea
Secretary of State Jon Husted’s proposal for online voter registration is an idea whose time has come.
It would make registration easier, perhaps especially attracting young people, the least frequent voters. It would save time for state and local employees. It would get the election process started on computers, improving record keeping.
It would not foster cheating, because people would have to prove who they are, and because records would show when somebody tries to register more than once.
Eight other states have already adopted online registration.
Other than that, Secretary Husted’s first batch of proposed reforms stops short of bold. He’s not calling for “same-day registration,” that is, merging the voter registration and voting processes into one, as some other states have done.
He’s also not calling for an increase in the number of places where people may cast early votes. That’s been one of the more widely discussed ideas for advancing the early-vote idea.
Under current rules, each county may have only one site. That can create problems in bigger counties. Montgomery County’s main government building was pretty much shut down by crowds at the end of the early voting period in 2008.
Secretary Husted says he’s open on that issue, but didn’t see it as one he had to resolve in preparation for the 2012 election.
Generating the most controversy among the Husted proposals is what some see as a step back. In recent elections, Montgomery County and some other urban counties have been sending voters application forms for absentee voting. Some counties even pay return postage; Montgomery County does not. (Warren, Greene, Miami, Preble and Clark counties don’t mail the applications.)
The Husted plan would ban sending the applications and paying postage. He says only some counties can afford to send applications, and he gets a lot of complaints about double standards from people in counties that don’t do it. He says the courts might side with them.
He favors all counties adopting the practice or none. But the state isn’t likely to either put up the money for all or pass a mandate on all.
Montgomery County elections chief Steve Harsman argues that encouraging absentee voting is a way to save money in the long run, by allowing for a reduction in the number of election machines and polling places needed on Election Day.
Most counties that send out the applications lean Democratic. But it’s worth noting that the elections boards that make these decisions are evenly balanced between the two parties. This isn’t a game being played by Democrats. (Secretary Husted says the political leanings of the counties don’t figure into his decision.)
Truth is, county efforts to gin up absentee-ballot applications are likely to be redundant with efforts by various political forces. That’s more true in presidential elections than other years, but presidential elections are the ones in which the long lines at voting places occur, which is one of the problems the counties say they are addressing by encouraging other forms of voting.
Also, there are plenty of ways to get absentee ballots — including online. And the people who want them are pretty motivated.
Other Husted proposals: Like his Democratic predecessor, Secretary Husted wants to shorten the early-voting and absentee-voting periods from 35 days to about half that. That has several advantages, the most important being that a lot of candidates have not even begun the most public parts of their campaigns by the beginning of October.
(This reform would also eliminate a silly debate that arose when the registration period and early voting overlapped by a week.)
Mr. Husted would also like to require elections boards to be open on a couple of Saturdays before an election to accept early votes, not just weekdays.
He also has proposals that are more technical. They’re designed partly to deal with Ohio’s chronic problem with “provisional ballots,” those cast by people whose right to vote at a particular place is questioned.
Electronic registration should also help, because it will encourage people to report their changes of address, and, if they re-register, they’ll receive info about their new location. Many disputes at polling places result from lack of updates.
The Husted proposals are not the last word on election reforms, but they’re a respectable start for a new secretary.
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