Frank LaRose visits Wood County to discuss early voting and election legislation

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio — Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose spoke at the Wood County Board of Elections on issues like absentee ballot requests, voter registration, voter identification and more Monday afternoon.

He backed the proposed changes that would include automated voter registration at BMV offices, removing the early voting day the Monday before election day, rolling back the absentee ballot request date to 10 days before election day, and more. Secretary LaRose said Ohio is pointed to as an example for other states to follow.

"You don't maintain that kind of position of national leadership by just standing in place. You maintain that position of national leadership by continuing to innovate and move forward. And that's exactly what we're here to talk about today with an important piece of legislation," said Frank LaRose, Ohio Secretary of State.

One of the bigger changes would be drop box restrictions. Each county boards of elections would be allowed to place up to three boxes outside their offices. Those boxes would only be available for the 10 days prior to election days.

Democrats spoke out against these proposed changes on a zoom press conference held Monday afternoon saying, "Statehouse Republicans are creating an obstacle course for Ohioans to navigate, making it harder to exercise their right to vote."

"These are curious proposals when Frank LaRose has been quoted as saying that we just had the most successful election in Ohio history. Now based on that, why then, would we be doing these, taking these steps backwards," said Nickie J. Antonio, Assistant Senate Minority Leader.

In the 2020 election, Ohio saw a record high number of voters with a statewide record turnout. Nearly 59% of all ballots were cast early in-person or absentee, and all 88 counties in Ohio reported a higher turnout percentage than 2016.

Secretary LaRose said he wasn't trying to impose a rush on the legislature, but thinks and hopes it will get passed sometime this year, it's up to the members of the legislature.