No Time to Rest – Your Help Needed Now | Courage PAC

I’m going to cut to the chase – we need your help on two things:

1)    to volunteer, spread the word and contribute funds to help us successfully file a referendum petition on HB 194 to let voters decide whether ill-advised election law changes should take place, and

2)    to participate in efforts to improve state and congressional redistricting underway this year with a citizen competition sponsored by drawthelinemidwest.org.

REFERENDUM PETITIONS TO PROTECT VOTING RIGHTS IN OHIO:

State Legislators, voting rights advocates, labor unions, progressive organizations, and concerned citizens across the State of Ohio have begun a referendum petition drive to overturn parts of a measure passed by the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature. HB 194 would limit access to voting and make less votes count. 

A statewide referendum on HB 194 would allow Ohio voters to vote “yes” or “no” on the harmful parts of this law and to stop it from becoming law until a vote can be taken at the November 2012 presidential election.

Following is a preview of the changes that would be imposed beginning in this fall’s election unless we succeed in this referendum effort –

• absentee voting (including by mail) would be cut short by two weeks,
• in-person early voting would only take place over 14 days with no evening, Saturday afternoon or Sunday voting,
• full social security numbers would have to provided on absentee and provisional ballot ID envelopes,
• rules would be softened on corporate political activity,
• poll workers would not have to tell voters they are in the wrong precinct and that if they are their vote won’t count,
• there would be no more 10 days after the election to give more information for provisional ballots to be counted,
• long lines of voters would be banned from interfering with nearby businesses, and there’s more.

What can you do? Petitions are being circulated for the threshold 1000 signatures needed for the Attorney General and the Secretary of State to qualify the petition for circulation. To stop the law from taking effect, once the initial petition is qualified, petitions with at least 231,154 signatures must be filed by September 29, 2011.

Please volunteer for the full petition drive, spread the word, and contribute to the effort. A strong coalition that you can be a part of has formed and moved forward quickly since Governor Kasich signed the bill on July 1, 2011. With your help, we can prove, once again, that government is for and about people. Please help us preserve the strength of democracy in Ohio by protecting access to voting and fair elections. When we say, “Every voice matters. Together we’re stronger,” now is the time to show that.

SIGN UP FOR THE REDISTRICTING COMPETITION:

Many think that there is nothing that can be done for 10 years to change the redistricting process that is now underway to redraw state legislative and Congressional lines – not true. Draw the Line Ohio is sponsoring a citizen competition so that private citizens can draw maps of Ohio congressional and state legislative districts using publicly available software and the same population and voting data used by public officials. Cash prizes will be awarded to the winning plans. These plans will also be submitted to the Legislature and Apportionment Board for its consideration.

There’s no time to rest. So many lent a helping hand to circulate referendum petitions on SB 5 and to contact their legislators and the Governor about the state budget. Now that nearly 1.3 million signatures were filed on the SB 5 referendum and advocates for mental health and the arts and others were successful, there’s more to do.

President Johnson hands the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the pen after signing the Voting Rights Act in March 1965

RECAP ON REFERENDUM – Here’s what HB 194 would do if voters don’t stop it:

1. Size of voting precincts: voting precincts in cities but not rural areas would be required by law to be made bigger in many cases, which could result in longer lines on Election Day in cities,
2. Poll workers: poll workers would not be required to tell a voter they are in the wrong precinct and that their ballot is not counted if they are,
3. Advantages for corporations: rules would be struck down and laws would be softened that regulate corporations’ activities in campaigns,
4. Citizen petition drives: the time needed to get enough signatures for a statewide petition such as this one would be shortened,
5. Technical reasons not to count votes: more technical reasons would be created to keep ballots from being counted, especially when voters make mistakes, like putting the current year in your birth date for an absentee ballot,
6. Government invading your privacy and identity theft: the government would be using your full Social Security number on documents like provisional and absentee ballot envelopes, with privacy not guaranteed,
7. Using your Social Security number to take you off the rolls: the state would be able to take your Social Security number and other private information about you and compare it with other government records to take you off the voting rolls, even if it finds new information and could correct your information for you,
8. Only certain people can register to vote online: you would be allowed to register to vote online but only if you have a driver’s license or state ID card,
9. Taking away time to correct your ballot: if you voted a provisional ballot, you would not get the 10 days you now have after the election to give additional information so your vote can be counted,
10. Shortening early voting and no Sunday voting: you would only have 3 weeks (not 5) to vote absentee by mail before Election Day; if you vote absentee in person, you only have 2 weeks, and there would be no Sunday voting,
11. Long lines not allowed to interfere with nearby business: even if there is a long line of voters, the law would now ban that line from interfering with a nearby business,
12. Allows for more restrictive voter ID in the future: if more restrictive voter ID requirements become law, this bill says they will control, no matter what.

See video of President Johnson’s signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

For more information on the HB 194 effort, contact fairelectionsohio@gmail.com or call 614-255-4255. A website will be available soon.