House Bill 194, which would have reduced the window of time for early and absentee voting, will not affect this election cycle as originally planned.
Anti-House Bill 194 group, Fair Elections Ohio has acquired enough signatures to put the bill on hold until the 2012 elections. If the group had not gotten enough signatures, the bill would have gone into effect today.
The group turned in 318,460 signatures, according to a press release. This is well more than the mandatory 231,247, or 6 percent of the number of voters in the last gubernatorial election. As a result, there will be a referendum in November 2012 on House Bill 194.
“We are still collecting signatures in case some of them cannot be validated,” said Nick Tuell, Fair Elections Ohio voting rights activist. “The campaign is not over yet. There is a 10-day grace period to get more signatures in case enough aren’t validated.”
“Early voting will start on Monday,” Tuell said. “The bill would have made it later, but the referendum will allow it to start.”
What this means, ultimately, is a lack of change to Ohio’s voting system in this year.
“Since the bill won’t go into effect … Ohio will basically have the old voting system from last year,” Tuell said.
io312410@ohiou.edu
