Voters head to the polls in Northeast Ohio

Voters arrive to cast their ballots at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Westlake, OH, Tuesday, November 5, 2013. (Marvin Fong / Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald's latest push to assert the county's right to mail out unsolicited absentee ballots may seem familiar. There's a good reason for that – it's basically happened before.

For the story behind early voting in Ohio at the state level, the Northeast Ohio Media Group's Robert Higgs has you covered. In short, Statehouse Republicans created early voting in 2005 in response to the massive lines that plagued the 2004 election in Cuyahoga County and across Ohio. (RELATED: Share your personal Election Day experiences.)

Moving forward to August 2011: Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted issued a statewide directive prohibiting county boards of elections from sending out unsolicited absentee ballot applications. Husted said the measure was meant to promote voting uniformity across the state.

In response, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, a Democrat, a few days later announced that his administration would mail out ballot applications anyway, paying the $330,000 cost if council approved it. He said the county's system was working and there was no reason to change it.

Husted suggested that he would seek to block elections officials from processing applications the county sent out. He ended up backing off his threat, and the following month, the two sides reached a deal.

FitzGerald agreed not to send out the unsolicited early voting applications. In exchange, Husted pledged to cover the costs of a statewide mailing in 2012, which ended up costing about $1.6 million.



Now, fast-forward to 2014. On Feb. 19, the GOP-controlled state legislature passed two elections bill. One cut the six days of early voting that fall during "Golden Week." The second prohibits counties from mailing out unsolicited absentee ballot applications. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, signed the bills a couple days later.

FitzGerald, who's running for governor, quickly threatened legal action to block the new laws and voting hours. Citing a 2012 decision from a federal appeals court that reinstated counties' ability to hold early, in-person voting in the final days before Election Day, FitzGerald said the precedent is on his side.



On March 6, he proposed a "Voters Rights Law" that would assert the county's right to mail out unsolicited absentee ballot applications, in defiance of the new law. And, a group of local black clergy protested the loss of "Souls to the Polls."

Council will debate FitzGerald's proposed law on March 18. FitzGerald told reporters on Tuesday that the legislation is at least in part a legal strategy to try to get the new state law before a court.



But Husted has said he will pay to send out absentee ballot applications statewide in November, and committed to doing so again today on his website.



Spokesman Matt McClellan said in an interview Wednesday that leftover federal funding is lined up to pay for the expense for this year. Future elections are subject to approval from state lawmakers, although Husted supports statewide mailings for general elections in even-numbered years, McClellan said.

But FitzGerald spokesman Rich Luchette suggested the state might not follow through in November.

“I think it’s not certain. We don’t trust the folks that are making these decisions,” he said. FitzGerald, he said, wants to make sure the decision rests here, regardless of which way the winds blow in Columbus.

Despite the partisan bickering over the mailing of applications for absentee ballots and the length of early-voting periods, most Ohioans still cast their ballots on Election Day.



In 2012, about 5.6 million ballots were cast in the November election, according to data from the Secretary of State's Office. In that election, about 1.8 million people voted early.