Opinion: Ohio's new voter ID law a waste of our time and money

Meredith Perkins
Updated ·3 min read
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A voter drops off her ballot in the drop box as motorists queue to enter the Hamilton County Board of Elections to either vote in person or drop off their completed absentee ballots, Friday, Oct. 9, 2020, in Norwood, Ohio.
A voter drops off her ballot in the drop box as motorists queue to enter the Hamilton County Board of Elections to either vote in person or drop off their completed absentee ballots, Friday, Oct. 9, 2020, in Norwood, Ohio.

In January, the Ohio Legislature passed House Bill 458, a radical law labeled as a casual "voter ID" law so you wouldn’t realize your very right to vote was being undermined. HB 458 has drastically changed the process for voting in-person, absentee and curbside, adding nonsensical barriers with the intent to exclude many from the democratic process.

As an Ohio college student, HB 458 has made voting inaccessible to my peers without cars, without Ohio driver’s licenses, or without time to read through all 81 pages of the bill, as Ohio has not funded any programs to educate the public on HB 458.For me to vote in-person, I would have to revoke my Kentucky driver’s license, drive 30 minutes to my nearest DMV, take a vision exam, and pay for a new driver’s license, unless I would prefer to spend months (and $165) buying a passport.Because of HB 458, you can no longer use a government ID, utility bill, bank statement, or last four digits of your Social Security number to vote. It must be an Ohio driver’s license or passport.

And that’s just to vote in-person.

Employees of the Hamilton County Board of Elections sort through and examine absentee ballots to determine eligibility on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022.
Employees of the Hamilton County Board of Elections sort through and examine absentee ballots to determine eligibility on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022.

To vote absentee, I would need to walk to the library, pay to print a ballot request, purchase postage, and walk to my university package center to submit my request form to the Secretary of State − all seven business days before the election, or my request is invalid.

Then, I would complete my ballot and either drive one hour to the Board of Elections, or buy my own postage and mail my ballot one day pre-election, or drop it off in-person 30 minutes away at the only drop-off box in Butler County, as HB 458 allows only one drop-off location per county. If I didn’t have a car, I couldn’t have my roommate drop off my ballot − now, anyone beyond a "near relative" dropping off my ballot is committing voter fraud.

I’m a full-time college student with three jobs. Put simply, who the hell has time for this?

Before HB 458, Ohio had a secure and sensible voter registration system: the Secretary of State would mail every voter the request form, pay for Ohioans’ postage, and give up until three days prior to the election for Ohioans to mail requests back.

The Hamilton County Board of Elections audits three election results from the 2021 election. The audit is run by a bipartisan group, hand checking ballots selected at the roll of dice. Secretary of State Frank LaRose holds a press conference to instill confidence in the Ohio election accuracy and process.
The Hamilton County Board of Elections audits three election results from the 2021 election. The audit is run by a bipartisan group, hand checking ballots selected at the roll of dice. Secretary of State Frank LaRose holds a press conference to instill confidence in the Ohio election accuracy and process.

HB 458 does not add any additional security to the voting process. Peer-reviewed studies have proven that voter ID laws do nothing to deter actual voter fraud, and there was no widespread voter fraud happening in Ohio in the first place under the original legislation.

It doesn’t matter what side of the political aisle you fall onto, this law is wasting your money, wasting your time, disenfranchising Ohioans, and interfering with Ohio’s democracy. Lower voter turnout doesn’t help any party, just like how higher voter turnout doesn’t hurt any party. Laws like HB 458 are what create political apathy and cause our government to act illogically.Call your legislators. Tell them to repeal HB 458.

Meredith Perkins is a sophomore at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, studying diplomacy and global politics. She is a native of Independence, Ky.

Meredith Perkins
Meredith Perkins

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Opinion: Ohio's new voter ID law a waste of our time and money