Given that 19 other states have authorized online voter registration, there is no good reason why Ohio can't, too. But there's a bad one: Inertia by General Assembly Republicans. Meanwhile, though, another Republican, Secretary of State Jon Husted, Ohio's chief elections officer, is an eloquent advocate for online registration.

Ohio already allows registered voters to update their addresses online. Husted last month told a House committee that "the most important reform we can tackle to make it both easy to vote and hard to cheat is the passage of online voter registration."

Husted also told the Policy and Legislative Oversight Committee that Ohio’s 88 elections boards could save from 50 cents to $1 per online registration, compared to paper registration. That would save taxpayers an estimated $1.5 million to $3 million over two years.

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The best pending proposal to authorize online registration is House Bill 78, sponsored by Rep. Michael Stinziano, a Columbus Democrat, and a former director of the Franklin County Board of Elections. Among the bill's co-sponsors are Reps. Barbara Boyd of Cleveland Heights and Dan Ramos of Lorain, both Democrats.

Some bystanders have suggested Husted could authorize online registration by administrative order. But that would spark another round of lawsuits over Ohio election law. And the one thing such litigation guarantees is delay.

Stinziano introduced his bill 42 weeks ago; it’s moved barely an inch, procedurally. GOP leaders control what the House votes on, and when. Despite calls by Republican Husted for an online registration law, Speaker William Batchelder of Medina appears in no hurry to bring Stinziano’s bill to a vote. That’s despite (or maybe because?) Ohioans next year will go to the polls to keep or replace GOP Gov. John Kasich as well as the other elected state executive officers, including Husted, all Republicans. Voters also will elect most of the legislature itself, Republican-led, and two Supreme Court seats now held by Republicans.

The stall on Stinziano’s bill shows yet again that some General Assembly Republicans refuse to understand that the right to vote, the keystone of free government, means nothing without the fullest opportunity, first, for registration -- then, for voting.