Ohio Voting Laws Set to Appear Before Federal Appeals Court

Today, Ohio voting laws are set to appear before a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati. The court will hear arguments for these laws, which have rules for early and in person voting. The courts will decide whether those rules are actually constitutional, in regards to discriminating against low income and minorities.

Many voters have had issues with casting absentee ballots, a popular choice for those that have left the state that still wish to participate in the highly contested swing state. Columbus resident, Gunther Lahm and his wife were told their votes were void because of a filing mistake.

“My wife mistakenly put our ballots in the wrong envelopes, meaning that my ballot went into her envelope and her ballot went into mine. She realized, after she had sealed them, that she had made a mistake so she hand wrote and corrected everything on each of those outer envelopes except for the date of birth. She forgot to fill out the date of birth.” Gunther told WOSU.

Civil Rights attorney Subodh Chandra found huge discrepancies between Ohio counties when looking at Gunther Lahm’s case. His vote and his wife’s vote would have counted in other counties. A problem of location.

This all comes off the heels of a recent Donald Trump quote in which he felt the Ohio swing vote was already rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton, his democratic rival. Voting shenanigans have been a major talking point for Republican officials this year, hammering Hillary on her controversial primaries against Bernie Sanders.

These new laws were passed by a Republican majority legislature and signed by our Republican Governor.