NEOCH FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST VOTER SUPPRESSION LAW

Photo Credit: Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal

On Friday, Jan. 6, the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH), Ohio Federation of Teachers, Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans, and Union Veterans Council sued over Ohio’s new voter suppression law, House Bill 458, which was enacted late last week. The law — which was passed despite the fact that both Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose have praised the state’s election apparatus in recent years and confirmed there is no widespread fraud — imposes three new restrictions on the voting process:

· A new photo ID provision that requires one of four forms of photo ID (a driver’s license, state identification card, passport, or military identification) in order to vote in person and eliminates a long list of previously accepted IDs;

· Moves up the deadline for voters to cure (meaning fix minor technical mistakes) their provisional and rejected mail-in ballots from seven days to four days after Election Day and

· Advances both the deadline for voters to request mail-in ballots from three days to a week before Election Day and the deadline for voters to return their mail-in ballots from 10 days to four days after Election Day.

These provisions make it extremely difficult for people experiencing homelessness, young, elderly, and Black voters to exercise their right to vote.

“For over 30 years, NEOCH has worked to make voting accessible for those who are experiencing homelessness,” says Executive Director of NEOCH, Chris Knestrick. “This law is a blatant act of voter suppression against the unhoused community. The right to vote is engraved into our constitution and simply can’t be taken away because your housing status makes it almost impossible to get mail or a photo ID.”

Further, the lawsuit argues that there is no justification for these provisions to be in place and lawmakers instead relied on myths about voter fraud that emerged following the 2020 election to push H.B. 458 through the legislative process.

“This law was passed to prevent black and brown people from exercising their right to vote, just like when poll taxes and literacy tests were used in the past,” says the Director of Organizing and Advocacy at NEOCH, Josiah Quarles. “H.B. 458 is the evolution of the Jim Crow voter suppression tactics, we are all too familiar with. We are challenging them now, just as we did back then, to defend our rights and the soul of our democracy.”

NEOCH and the other plaintiffs argue that the challenged provisions of this new voter suppression law “impose unjustified and discriminatory burdens on the fundamental right to vote” in violation of the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and should be permanently blocked. This is the first lawsuit to be filed against H.B. 458, notably the first voter suppression law to be passed in the wake of the 2022 midterm elections.