Former Republican Chief of Staff Advises Husted; Recommends Firing of Democrats for Supportng Increased Poll Access
COLUMBUS, OHIO-Today, Jon Allison, former Republican Governor Bob Taft’s chief of staff, issued a formal opinion to Secretary of State Jon Husted that he should fire Montgomery County Elections Board members Tom Ritchie and Dennis Lieberman for supporting non-work and weekend early voting access. In response, Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern released the following statement:
“This ruling is no surprise – we didn’t need to wait a full week to learn that former Republican Governor Bob Taft’s chief of staff would side with Secretary of State Husted to further this ongoing pattern of voter suppression in Ohio. For more than a year, Governor Kasich, Secretary Husted, and the Republican legislature have done everything they can to game this election in their favor by changing the rules we’ve followed for the past few years, making it harder for minorities, seniors, students and low income voters to cast a ballot. Now, Husted is actually considering firing people for supporting non-work and weekend voting hours, the very access that nearly a quarter of a million Ohioans depended upon in 2008. Thanks to one of the Governor’s top advisers, we learned what this is all about when Doug Preisse declared, ‘we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban —read African-American — voter-turnout machine.’
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