Chrissie Thompson

cthompson@enquirer.com

Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Friday vetoed a bill fast-tracked by lawmakers in his party that would have required a payment, possibly thousands of dollars, if a judge ordered polls to stay open longer on Election Day.

The bill would have made Ohio the first state to require money from voters who successfully sue to extend voting hours. The change was championed by Republican lawmakers after judges in Southwest Ohio kept polls open late during the March and November elections. But Democrats, voter advocates and even Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted had said it wasn't necessary to require a cash bond in those situations.

In vetoing the bill, Kasich said he found the requirement to set bond at a minimum of $1 could keep people from raising valid issues about voting problems.

"One wonders why these trifling excuses should enable chaos at the polls this fall," responded Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Green Township, who drafted the bill, in a scathing statement. "Without the bill, there could be 88 different sets of voting hours in Ohio’s 88 counties set by state court judges bent on appeasing their political allies to rig the elections. Should this occur, the blame will fall squarely on the Governor."

GOP lawmakers had hoped to have the proposal in place by the November election, when Ohio, as a quintessential swing state, could attract lawsuits over any number of perceived voting problems.

Last November, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman, a Republican, ordered polls to remain open an additional 90 minutes in the county after an appeal filed by supporters of a marijuana ballot initiative, citing technical glitches that caused some delays on Election Day.

During the March 15 primary, U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott ordered polls to stay open another hour after learning about a serious crash on eastbound I-275, which was closed for several hours after a car plunged into the Ohio River from the Combs-Hehl Bridge.

Judge: Stranded drivers 'wanted to vote'

Democrats and Republicans alike said they thought both judges were wrong to extend voting hours. Dlott's order in particular was met with outrage by some: She issued the order without a court hearing or suit. Instead, she got a dinnertime call from her clerk's office. Motorists, the staffer said, were stranded on I-275 and had asked if she could help them have a chance to vote.

The bill would have required Ohio's secretary of state and attorney general to receive notice of a request for an extension of voting hours and to have an opportunity to address the judge. It would also have required a formal submission of evidence of voting problems. Kasich said he agreed with those provisions, but not with the requirement that the voter requesting the judge's order be required to post bond.

"Prohibiting state court judges from exercising their discretion to waive the bond requirement in only these types of cases is inequitable and might deter persons from seeking an injunction to allow after-hours voting when there may be a valid reason for doing so," Kasich said in a statement.

Judges have never had that discretion, Seitz said, citing an Ohio Supreme Court rule requires a cash bond "in an amount fixed by the court or judge allowing it."

" 'An amount fixed by the court or judge' requires 'an amount.' It is a simple mathematical fact that zero is not an amount," Seitz said. "Perhaps it is not only our students who need improvement in their math proficiency scores. 'Null' is not 'an amount.' "

Plus, he said, his bill waived the bond requirement for "the truly indigent." But in that case, only the person who brought the suit would have been allowed to vote after regular voting hours.

Seitz and his fellow Republicans had supported the cash payment in part because the person bringing the suit might then foot the bill for the cost of keeping polls open longer.

"The veto once again shifts to local government and local taxpayers the cost of extended-hours voting by judicial fiat," Seitz said. "Well-heeled special interests will now be free to continue to abuse the voting hours established by the legislature, as we saw last year when a court ordered extended hours at the request of investors seeking to put a marijuana monopoly into the Ohio Constitution." (The marijuana initiative was defeated at the polls.)

But Democrats had said the bond requirement amounted to a poll tax.

"All Ohioans deserve the option to extend polling hours to fix voting problems, not just a wealthy few,” said Sen. Cecil Thomas, D-North Avondale, in a statement supporting the veto.

Jessie Balmert and Dan Horn contributed to this report.