{"id":4215,"date":"2023-01-16T02:32:01","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T08:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=4215"},"modified":"2023-03-28T00:46:03","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T05:46:03","slug":"gop-action-on-mail-ballot-timelines-angers-military-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=4215","title":{"rendered":"GOP action on mail ballot timelines angers military families"},"content":{"rendered":"

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) \u2014\u00a0Ohio\u2019s restrictive new election law<\/a>\u00a0significantly shortens the window for mailed ballots to be received \u2014 despite no evidence that the extended timeline has led to fraud or any other problems \u2014 and that change is angering active-duty members of the military and their families because of its potential to disenfranchise them.<\/p>\n

The pace of ballot counting after Election Day has become a target of conservatives egged on by former President Donald Trump. He has promoted\u00a0a false narrative<\/a>\u00a0since losing the 2020 election that fluctuating results as\u00a0late-arriving mail-in ballots are tallied<\/a>\u00a0is a sign of fraud.Republican lawmakers said during debate on the Ohio legislation that even if Trump\u2019s claims aren\u2019t true, the skepticism they have caused among conservatives about the accuracy of election results justifies imposing new limits.
\nThe new law reduces the number of days for county election boards to include mailed ballots in their tallies from 10 days after Election Day to four. Critics say that could lead more ballots from Ohio\u2019s military voters to miss the deadline and get tossed.
\nThis issue isn\u2019t confined to Ohio.
\nThree other states narrowed their post-election windows for accepting mail ballots last session, according to data from the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab. Similar moves pushed by Republican lawmakers are being proposed or discussed this year in\u00a0Wisconsin, New Jersey, California and other states.
\nOhio\u2019s tightened window for receiving mailed ballots is likely to affect just several hundred of the thousands of military and overseas ballots received in any election. Critics say any number is too great.
\n\u201cWhat kind of society do we call ourselves if we are disenfranchising people from the rights that they are over there protecting?\u201d said Willis Gordon, a Navy veteran and veterans affairs chair of the Ohio NAACP\u2019s executive committee.
\nRepublican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, who championed the tightened ballot deadline, said Ohio\u2019s previous window was \u201can extreme outlier\u201d nationally. She said Ohio\u2019s military and overseas voters still have ample time under the new law.
\n\u201cWhile there is certainly more work to do, this new law drastically enhances Ohio\u2019s election security and improves the integrity of our elections, which my constituents and citizens across the state have demanded,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) \u2014\u00a0Ohio\u2019s restrictive new election law\u00a0significantly shortens the window for mailed ballots to be received \u2014 despite no evidence that the extended timeline has led to fraud or any other problems \u2014 and that change is angering active-duty members of the military and their families because of its potential to disenfranchise them. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4538,1264,1833,4537,4540,1170,4539,1830,4536,1834],"class_list":["post-4215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-disenfranchisement","tag-gop","tag-mail","tag-mail-in-voting","tag-military-families","tag-new","tag-new-electoral-law","tag-ohio","tag-restrictive","tag-results"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4215"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8775,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4215\/revisions\/8775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}