2012's Katherine Harris?
Meet the Ohio election official who's determined to be a household name
![Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/Y29QiCeTJ4BMAQ78GRWwEh-415-80.jpg)
Because he's a male, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted is not going to become a garish caricature on Saturday Night Live after tomorrow's election the way Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris was in 2000. But SNL might want to keep some room in its show for a sketch anyway. Mr. Husted seems determined to make a name for himself, and not in a way that will please those of us who want the election to end on a peaceful and lawsuit-free note.
First, some background. Husted, 45, went along with national GOP efforts to try and eliminate early voting in the state. It would protect the integrity of the ballot, he insisted. When he and the GOP-controlled state legislature decided to limit early voting on the last weekend of the election to military voters and Americans outside the country and Husted agreed, Democrats promptly sued, and won. Husted fought back, saying that early voting burdened his county election boards right before the election, and that his decision had nothing to do with an attempt to make it harder for minorities to vote. (Republicans argued in public that Democrats gamed the early voting hours because they bused black voters to polls after church on the Sunday before the election, something that Republicans couldn't do because their voters tend to be more spread out and not clustered in cities.)
Provisional ballots allow folks who show up at the wrong polling site or who don't have proper identification to exercise their right to participate in elections, subject to post-facto verification. Husted has done his darndest to shift the burden of proof onto the voter, increasing the number of conditions that would get a ballot disqualified. A week ago, Husted told local election officials that ballots marked with improper identification had to be rejected and destroyed. That seemed to violate a consent degree (the result of another lawsuit brought against him) that established that improper identification on a ballot did not automatically mean it had to be discarded. Husted insists his directive is legal because it allows voters with the wrong type of ID to produce the right type of ID on the spot. That is, if a poll worker tells someone they've produced improper identification, then the person can (in theory) dig through their wallet or purse or go back home and get the right one. Weak. That's weak. Nothing in the current law prevents that from happening anyway. Husted says that poll workers who have to verify identification post-election will be unduly burdened.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
![https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516-320-80.jpg)
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Now, the latest (and weirdest) move: Husted acted as if the integrity of election machines were trivial. This is not something a Republican usually does; the vote is supposed to be sacrosanct. Indeed, a patch of federal and state law say that you can't change software on voting machines after they've been certified. This is reasonable, because it ensures that if there's a software glitch, it'll effect everyone equally, or it has an equal chance of affecting everyone. Ohio's voting machines have been certified. Husted allowed the creator of voting tabulation software to install so-called "patches" on machines that will ultimately process more than 4,000,000 votes. Husted's defense is that the coding changes are "experimental." That is, it is within the law, and Husted's purview, to perform select experiments on voting machines; experiments and tests don't have to be certified or monitored.
In this case, though, it seemed like Husted decided to call the software changes "experimental" simply so he could make an end run around laws requiring that any changes to voting systems be certified and made known to everyone. If Husted had done this six months ago, before the machines were subject to verification, that would have been fine. But it stretches reality to call a major software fix just days before an election an "experiment." Now maybe the software patch really is needed. If that's so, then Husted and the contractor making the changes have to swallow the verification process, even if it means delaying the counting of votes. Husted's spokesman says that the patches don't directly involve the tabulation of software ... only the mechanisms that the already-tallied votes get sent to central processors. And I am not among those who believe that Republicans or corporations would deliberately inject coding that tilts elections to the GOP.
But that's besides the point. Voters in Ohio have to be confident their process is legitimate. That means that provisional ballots ought to be counted fairly, even if it takes a while to verify or reject a ballot. It means that votes have to be counted in a uniform way using the same equipment, even if it means that the tabulation won't be finished immediately. It means that the state has to go out of its way to make sure that its actions with regard to elections are seen as fair and above board.
Several court decisions are pending.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Husted has spoken out against tougher standards for photo identification, to his credit. But his actions, generally, have suggested that his vision of ballot integrity is narrow and mostly involves a very quick count. His penchant for expeditiousness looks very partisan, as his political advisers probably know. It does not look very statesmanlike.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.
-
Today's political cartoons - September 7, 2024
Cartoons Saturday's cartoons - football widows, meddling kids, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Smoking ban: the return of the nanny state?
Talking Point Starmer's plan to revive Sunak-era war on tobacco has struck an unsettling chord even with some non-smokers
By The Week UK Published
-
Crossword: September 7, 2024
The Week's daily crossword puzzle
By The Week Staff Published
-
A brief history of third parties in the US
In Depth Though none of America's third parties have won a presidential election, they have nonetheless had a large impact on the country's politics
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
How could J.D. Vance impact the special relationship?
Today's Big Question Trump's hawkish pick for VP said UK is the first 'truly Islamist country' with a nuclear weapon
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Biden, Trump urge calm after assassination attempt
Speed Reads A 20-year-old gunman grazed Trump's ear and fatally shot a rally attendee on Saturday
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Supreme Court rejects challenge to CFPB
Speed Read The court rejected a conservative-backed challenge to the way the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published