CLEVELAND, Ohio — The order in which candidates are listed on Ohio’s ballots differs from precinct to precinct and is spelled out in state law.
We’re talking about how the they vary on Today in Ohio.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, impact editor Leila Atassi and content director Laura Johnston.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.
You can now join the conversation. Call 833-648-6329 (833-OHTODAY) if you’d like to leave a message we can play on the podcast.
Here’s what else we’re asking about today:
Why is Donald Trump’s name first on my absentee ballot but not yours?
Have the ads by Bernie Moreno and Sherrod Brown in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race reached a new low, and does anyone believe the ridiculous claims they make?
Let’s just say it: Cleveland’s lead paint program is a total failure, meaning untold numbers of children continue to be poisoned and will face a lifetime of challenges as a result. What did we learn Friday, and what is Mayor Justin Bibb doing about it?
We’re taking the pulse of a bunch of counties as the presidential election nears, getting into the heads of voters as much as we can about what their hopes are as they cast ballots. Marc Bona did a terrific job with Ashtabula County. What are the key takeaways?
Judge4Yourself was such a welcome service when it began more than a decade ago, a collection of public-minded lawyers reviewing the qualifications of candidates for judges and offering ratings. The secrecy of the process and criticisms about race bias caused problems along the way, but the organization offered more openness and brought in more diversity to the judging. So why are most candidates for judge refusing to participate this season?
A recent change in Ohio law requires party labels in Ohio Supreme Court races, and reporter Jake Zuckerman provides us a thoughtful look at the consequences. What do we learn from it?
As of now, any vote for Green party candidate Jill Stein on the Ohio ballot won’t be counted. Secretary of State Frank LaRose determined she changed her running mate after the deadline, disqualifying her candidacy. Stein has blasted the decision, but she finally took a concrete step to fight it. What did she do?
Ohio voters have been bombarding elections offices with their absentee ballot applications, and what seems like a large number have been rejected. What are the reasons, and can the wanna-be voters do something to get their ballots?
To follow up on the story about the East Cleveland mayor being charged with using his position to steal from the residents of his city, we put together a list of all the officials who have been charged with crimes there. It’s a long list. Let’s go over it.
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris Quinn (00:00.912)
The Guardian series with Detroit will go down as one of the tightest ever. It was great baseball. Let’s hope it continues as the Guardians now take on the most hated team in Cleveland, the Yankees. It’s Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Leila Tassi and Laura Johnston. Three weeks away from Election Day, we got politics on the table.
Lisa (00:10.648)
The most hated TV show is The Yankees. It’s Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion for people.com and the Good Money Dealer.
Chris Quinn (00:28.57)
Lisa, why is Donald Trump’s name first on some absentee ballots, but not others?
Lisa (00:34.947)
Yeah, this is interesting. There’s actually a state law that determines the order of candidates on the ballot and it does have a purpose. And that purpose is to keep the same candidate from being first on every single ballot. So precincts in each county get either a number or a letter designation.
So in the first precinct, the candidates are listed alphabetically. So the, you know, the highest alphabetically would be the top name. That name goes to the bottom in the next precinct’s ballot and everybody moves up one and so on. And so Summit County Board of Elections Lance Reed says, makes it fair to all candidates. Some voters just pick the first name they see regardless of who it is or what race they’re running in. So yeah, interesting. I did not know that.
Chris Quinn (01:19.644)
Yeah, but it creates conspiracy theories, right? Because I got an email about this. This is why we did the story. Donald Trump was first. I think they said Kamala was fifth or sixth, and that’s not right. And I did kind of remember that the random order or the, you know, the rotating order is part of the law. But if you’re a Trump supporter and Kamala is first, you’re going to think the fix is in. If you’re a Kamala supporter and Trump is first, you’re going to think the fix is in.
Lisa (01:29.506)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (01:46.202)
That’s why we did the story. There’s no fix. It’s a random rotating order. And if you’re a good voter, you’ll go down the list and go for the candidate you chose. You should go into the ballot box knowing exactly who you’re voting for anyway.
Lisa (02:00.714)
especially this year. And no stray marks on the ballot. mean, you know, take your time, think about it, you know, make sure you’re coloring in the right circle. But you know, Lance Reed is probably right. I’m sure there are people go, you know, so.
Chris Quinn (02:15.258)
Although people, I’m telling you, I’m hearing from people who are absolutely furious about the way Frank LaRose wrote the language for issue one. They’re just so angry that a state official would lie like he did. And they think he should be charged with a crime because it’s so offensive the way he has written it.
Lisa (02:33.388)
Well, and I did read yesterday in one of my feeds is that somebody who got an absentee ballot says the language goes to the next page. So it, you know, you have to flip the page to read the whole thing. And then the voting part is like way, way down at the bottom. So yeah, it’s not very obvious from what they say.
Chris Quinn (02:52.281)
These are people who know what they want to do. They just were stunned that they’re calling it gerrymandering and they’re calling it partisan group. It’s an absolute lie and our crooked Supreme Court affirmed it. But voters, at least the ones I’m hearing from, are angry, very angry that Frank LaRose would so abandon his duties. You’re listening to Today in a While.
Laura (02:52.895)
I.
Laura (03:13.326)
Well, I did get my…
Chris Quinn (03:15.792)
Have the ads for Bernie Marino and Sherrod Brown in Ohio’s Senate race reached a new low? And does anyone believe the ridiculous claims they make? Laura.
Laura (03:25.442)
Yeah, this is bad. The candidates and the outside groups that are working on their behalf, they’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars mostly on the negative TV ads in the race. This is one of the most pivotal in the nation this year because as we know, Sherrod Brown is the only statewide elected Democrat from Ohio and the Republicans would like to make it a clean slate from Ohio. Also, the whole national Congress, you know, hangs in the balance.
not just individual TV stations, but the entire broadcast TV media market will likely run out of ad time to sell by the final week of the campaign. So you think you’re seeing a lot now, it’s just going to get worse. And just about all of them are negative. They address the same small handful of topics that these pundits believe that you are going to care about. And they’re wanting to give each other a very bad impression at the ballot box. And that’s because people don’t necessarily vote for who they like, but based on who they dislike.
So the abortions care about immigration and transgender issues. That’s what they are advertising about. And from Brown’s campaign on Moreno, they’re talking about abortion and attacks on Moreno’s ethics because he owned car dealerships and there are lawsuits about that. So this is from the opinion polling. Politicians have always bent the truth. The experts are saying they’re lying way more since 2016 when President Trump made it acceptable. And when it comes to whether they believe it or not, mean, Chris, you
sent out a subtext to your followers and most of the people, think, what do you say, two-thirds said, don’t believe a word that comes out of these ads.
Chris Quinn (04:58.384)
Well, but the fact is that charades are at least based more on truth than Moreno’s. Moreno’s trying all of the baiting tactics. They’re over the top stupid. And I don’t know that anybody with a brain is buying it. Weirdest thing is at the end of his, he appears and there’s welding sparks in the background because, you know, Bernie Moreno spent his life in industrial businesses. It’s ridiculous posing. His ads have been terrible from the beginning when he ran.
two years ago. But he’s trying what the Republicans try all this doom and gloom and really bending the truth. Whereas, Sherrod’s right, Bernie Moreno got sued by a whole bunch of employees. He did shred documents, the judge did call him out on it. Those have all been fact checked and been proven. He was a sleazy guy with his employees. Whereas it’s not really true going the other way.
I wrote a column this weekend about Bill Adair’s book that’s out tomorrow and in it he makes the case that Republicans lie a lot more. Bill Adair was the founder of PolitiFact, did a whole lot of fact checking and it’s true, Republicans do lie more. Democrats do lie though.
Laura (05:55.16)
Right.
Laura (06:11.436)
Right. so the Senate Leadership Fund, which obviously National Group Mitch McConnell, they’re spending a whole lot of money on this race and other races across the country. And in a lot of these, they are pinpointing the transgender issue. And we talked last week about the BW Baldwin Wallace poll where Ohioans don’t like the idea of kids who are born boys and who transitioned playing on girls sports teams and the idea of transgender, which bathroom to use. So they’re really kind of honing in on that.
and saying, know, like, Sherrod Brown wants a man in your daughter’s locker room, that kind of thing. And it’s really twisting everything to try to make this an issue so that people will say, you know, they’re saying, you know, Sherrod’s too liberal for Ohio is a lot of the ads that I keep seeing. And that is really twisted logic to even get there. If you read Jeremy Pelser’s story, he gets into detail on where they are basing this, but it’s not.
It’s not what they’re saying in the ad.
Chris Quinn (07:12.624)
The transgender issue affects an infinitesimal percentage of the population. If you want to talk about the economy, you want to talk about abortion, you want to talk about women’s rights, it affects a whole lot of people. They’re zeroing in on something that really doesn’t have an effect on almost anybody in Ohio. And it’s because they really can’t land a blow on him elsewise.
Laura (07:37.152)
Right. And because he has a long track record, right? People in Ohio know Sherrod Brown. They know what he stands for. He knows, you know, they’ve been, he’s been a blue collar supporter of Ohioans for a long time. And so it’s harder to land that blow because he already has such a long name recognition in history. Whereas Bernie Marino, this is the first impression that voters are having other than, you know, the primary for the Senate race two years ago. And so there, and,
He said a lot of things that make for these bloopers, right? That idea that like, would women care about abortion? You know, especially if they’re past 50. That you don’t even have to do anything to that ad. That’s what he said.
Chris Quinn (08:17.092)
Look, there’s no comparison between these two candidates. Voting for Bernie Moreno means you’re not paying attention and you don’t really care about the future of Ohio. Bernie stands for nothing. He is a cartoon character. Sherrod has a lifetime of public service. There’s no comparison. He should win 90-10, but it’s going to be close because of the way
were so partisan and their voters that just want their team to win without regard for what it means. Bernie Moreno isn’t anything. He’s just a puppet for Donald Trump. He’ll do whatever Donald Trump tells him to do. Is that what we want in an elected leader? Clearly it was when Vance ran because he was just as bad and yet we elected him. So we’ll have to see what happens.
Laura (08:45.858)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (09:00.107)
Right, I know.
I look at the last year in Ohio politics though and how Ohio went for abortion rights and for recreational marijuana and they didn’t allow the Republicans to change the Constitution to make it harder to change the Constitution. I think people, that means that you are thinking about the issues and not just voting based on what Republicans tell you. So I hope everybody thinks like Lisa said, think about who you want to vote for, research the issues and vote with your conscience.
Chris Quinn (09:29.934)
It’ll be shameful for Ohio if we end up with Vance and Bernie Marino as our two senators.
Laura (09:36.118)
I guess no. Don’t represent me.
Chris Quinn (09:39.61)
Yeah, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. Let’s just say it, Cleveland’s lead paint program is at total failure, meaning untold numbers of children continue to be poisoned and will face lifetimes of challenges as a result. Lela, what did we learn Friday and what is Mayor Justin Bibb saying he will do about it?
Leila (10:00.44)
It’s been five years since Cleveland passed the Lead Safe Law aimed at protecting kids from lead pain exposures. And so far, the results, as you were saying, are so disappointing. Not only has there been no reduction in child lead poisoning rates, but new data shows an increase of 5.5 percent from 2022 to 2023. Seventy four more kids were poisoned last year compared to the year before.
and Cleveland’s rates remain higher than cities like Detroit, Cincinnati, and Toledo. So this law passed in 2019 and it requires rental property owners with buildings built before 1978 to certify their homes as lead safe every two years. But since it went into effect, compliance has been very low. Few landlords have followed through and even fewer have renewed their certifications. Meanwhile,
Over $100 million went to make homes safer, and that’s been slow to reach those who need it. Mayor Justin Bibb admitted that the city’s current approach has failed, and he called for urgent reforms. One key proposal is to shift from the clearance exam process, which landlords can pass with the simple cleaning of their property, to a more rigorous testing method known as risk assessments. The clearance exams have proven
Insufficient data shows that 11 homes that passed these exams still went on to poison kids. Advocates are arguing that the tougher risk assessments are crucial to making sure that we reach true lead safety at these properties. So despite city and nonprofit leaders promising changes, the progress has been slow and testing rates are…
particularly low in Cleveland’s majority Black East Side from 2021 to 2023. More than 4,200 children under the age of five were poisoned by lead, which can cause irreversible damage to the brain and nervous system. That leads to lifelong issues like learning disabilities and behavioral problems. So this was just alarming, awful news.
Chris Quinn (12:16.068)
Generation after generation of Cleveland kids have been unable to thrive because of lead poisoning. I think the city has taken the wrong approach from day one. The landlords didn’t paint these places. They didn’t create this problem. This is a public health issue and the public should solve it. I don’t know why they haven’t just created a fund where house by house by house, you go in, you tear out the doors, you replace the windows, you tear out the trim, you get the lead paint out because once it’s gone,
It’s gone on forever and any kid who lives there is safe. And we have this wacko system where we’re trying to make it landlords comply and they’re not complying and it’s not working. We should be abating the lead. All that ARPA money that they squandered on all those weirdo things. If we would have plowed it into this, how many houses could we have made safe? And once it’s done, every kid who lives there has a much better chance of thriving for the rest of their lives.
I can’t believe five years have been wasted. It’s just shocking that they squandered the last five years and we’re actually doing worse. They ought to have a crisis meeting and change their entire approach and get this done.
Leila (13:26.904)
And we know because we’ve talked to inspectors in the past who basically told us that the inspections are a sham because it all depends on how well the landlord cleans and what the timing is in relation to the inspection because you could clean the heck out of your property and pass. And two weeks later, that lead dust is back. So it’s just awful.
Chris Quinn (13:47.716)
It’s it. But it’s expensive to get the lead out. It’s it’s on all the surfaces, all the woodwork and as windows open and close, they scrape it to create the dust. The kids breathe in the dust. You got to get it out of there and spend the money to do it. Yeah, I mean, painting over it doesn’t work. Encapsulation doesn’t work. Get it out. They could have created to if Cleveland had gone about this right. A cottage industry.
Leila (14:00.471)
Right.
You can’t just encase it with paint, right, right.
No.
Chris Quinn (14:16.216)
where you’re training people to be carpenters, to be window replacers, to go in and do this and learn a career. Because Lord knows we need more home remodelers. Anybody that’s tried to hire one knows how backed up they are because there aren’t enough people in there. So Cleveland could have created a training program to create the people that would do this and get it done. I just don’t understand this backwards approach. Other places have done such a better job.
Leila (14:39.416)
You’re right.
Chris Quinn (14:45.146)
This was terrible news. Of course, they released it at what, four o’clock on a Friday, hoping no one’s going to notice.
Leila (14:47.095)
Right.
Leila (14:51.736)
We talked about it at the very beginning of, remember when the ARPA money was first released and everyone was talking about what would be the most transformational, highest use for that tranche of money. And we all said then that lead paint should have been the highest priority for the city, that that would have transformed lives truly and given kids the best shot. And they should have poured all of it into doing it right.
Chris Quinn (14:56.249)
Yeah.
Chris Quinn (15:02.691)
Exactly.
Leila (15:21.462)
What do we do? Squander it on a bunch of crap and look where we are with this lead pain program. It’s awful.
Chris Quinn (15:24.252)
Yeah, and the saddest thing is there are kids right now breathing that in, having their brains get damaged, who didn’t have to have that. And that’s the tragedy here. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We are taking the pulse on a bunch of counties as the presidential electioneers getting into the heads of voters as much as we can about what their hopes are as they cast their ballots.
Leila (15:36.161)
right.
Chris Quinn (15:51.546)
Laura, Mark Bona did a terrific job with the Ashtabula County profile. What are the key takeaways?
Laura (15:58.168)
that this is an often overlooked corner of Ohio. And we talk about Northeast Ohio. This is the very Northeast County of Ohio. But a lot of times people don’t even think of Ashtabula in the greater Cleveland metropolitan area because it is so far out there. And so I think they feel left out for, they don’t have a big city there. So they care for their own. They’ve gone both red and blue. When you look at the last bunch of elections,
Over the last 64 years, it’s been nearly evenly divided on presidential preferences, voting Democrat nine times, Republican seven. And the folks that Mark talked to, and he talked to the leaders of the community, that was the idea behind this project, was we were going to look at a lot of data and we were going to talk to the people who had a pulse on the community, who knew a lot of people and were leaders, not necessarily officials who are elected, and not just the people that you walk into a coffee shop or a diner and you run into, but people who really understand
their communities. And what they said is this is community first and then politics second. They told the story about a dairy farm where there was a fire and the barn was burnt to the ground. Not a lot of cows died, thank goodness, but everybody took them in because they care for their own, which is so nice to hear because you need that kind of community that it takes a village kind of way of life. But they have their own issues. They have limited opportunity for access to capital.
They’re the least educated county in our eight county area with 15.7 % of their residents who have a bachelor’s degree. They do have a lot of bright spots though. They have that great state lodge in Geneva. They have a wine industry with grape growing. They have the Spire Institute, which is drawing tourism from around the region because of youth sports and all of the big money that goes into that.
and they have are thinking about ways to support their small businesses and their education. it’s just a transitioning county maybe, but it really is on their its own compared to the rest of Northeast Ohio.
Chris Quinn (18:02.8)
They do identify though with Cleveland because as we cover different things, if we don’t include them in the county roundup, I’ll get very nice notes from people who live there saying, hey, you know, we’re, part of this Northeast Ohio. You talk about, and when you do stories that look at how we’re all thinking and you, you omit us, you leave a piece of us out. I think Mark did a great job of incorporating them in to the thinking and you learn a lot.
Laura (18:06.285)
Yes.
Laura (18:26.595)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (18:30.584)
Even if you’re aware of what’s going on out there, you learned a lot from his piece. Good stuff. I hope they’re all this good.
Laura (18:36.93)
Me too. We also have Medina. We are doing every county, so over the next four weeks you’ll see them all in print and online.
Chris Quinn (18:40.699)
Yeah, we’re.
Chris Quinn (18:45.648)
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Judge for Yourself was such a welcome service when it began more than a decade ago, a collection of public minded lawyers reviewing the qualifications of candidates for judgeships and offering ratings. The secrecy of the process and criticisms about race bias caused problems along the way, but the organization offered more openness and brought in more diversity to the judging.
Lisa (18:48.92)
you
Chris Quinn (19:10.618)
So Lisa, why are most candidates for judge refusing to participate this season?
Lisa (19:16.46)
Well, it’s definitely a credibility issue. So, you know, the mission of Judge For Yourself was supposed to be, you know, nonpartisan, focusing on education, litigation experience, potential conflicts of interest, pro bono work and the disciplinary history of their candidates, not the issue stances. But this year, only three candidates in the six Cuyahoga County Common Police Court races took part in Judge For Yourself. There were questions over its supposed nonpartisanship.
And their credibility took a big hit when Judge For Yourself Chair, C. Ellen Connolly started posting inflammatory memes on social media. The most controversial of that was one of Donald Trump’s face superimposed on John F. Kennedy’s body just before he was assassinated. And the caption said, I have a dream. So she lost her position on that and their credibility took a really big hit. Back in 2018, they were accused of ranking minority candidates lower
by area pastors. So then they added the Asian American bar to the groups that do this review process. And they felt that they became more transparent about the review process. Also all three Republican, Ohio Supreme Court candidates and many Cuyahoga County Democrats declined to take part in judge for yourself. Tim Hess is a Republican common police candidate. He’s running against Democrat Molly Murphy. And he said that,
Connolly’s posts were the breaking point for him. He felt that she made racist attacks on black conservatives. Connolly is a black woman. And then there was a 2022 interview that he had with Judge For Yourself. And he said, they only asked questions for about eight minutes. And then they spent a whole lot of time talking about diversity and gender pronouns, which he felt was inappropriate for the setting. He says, I didn’t fit into their little box of political correctness.
Chris Quinn (21:07.324)
Yeah, I’m not buying the Connolly explanation. I think it’s an easy one to point to. So you have what sounds like a legitimate excuse. I think there’s some rigor to what they do and there are candidates that are not qualified and they don’t want to be labeled as not qualified. I wish Judge for Yourself was completely transparent. You know, when we do our editorial endorsements, we don’t just say we endorse this person. We lay out why and then we lay out what we think of the other candidates.
I wish they would do that. Why are they not qualified? Why are they highly qualified? What are you using to do that? And they don’t, they don’t offer any of that. And I think that lack of disclosure hurts them with people like this. It’s too bad because it’s so hard to judge judicial candidates. And I think they mean well. I think they’re trying to do their best to say, look, these folks would make good judges. These folks probably not.
Lisa (21:55.906)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (22:04.72)
I hope they can figure out a way to the future because to lose them just loses another element that voters can rely upon. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. A recent change in Ohio law requires party labels in Ohio Supreme Court races and reporter Jake Zuckerman provides a thoughtful look at the consequences. Layla, what do we learn from it?
Leila (22:27.28)
This is the second round of partisan races since Republican lawmakers changed the rules about Ohio Supreme Court races. And before this, judicial candidates ran without party labels, but now requiring them to declare whether they’re Democrats or Republicans makes the race feel much more like typical political battles. And so far, Republicans have been winning under this new system, and they’re hoping to keep that streak going.
But the Democratic candidates, including incumbents Mike Donnelly and Melody Stewart, are really frustrated because their Republican opponents are refusing to debate them. They haven’t even responded to the Cleveland City Club’s invitations for a debate while Democrats have agreed to participate. This follows a trend that we’ve seen across the country where Republican candidates avoid public debates that likely because they’re parties.
recent successes make public appearances more of a risk than a benefit. With a GOP stronghold on statewide elections and super majorities in the Ohio legislature, Republicans may feel that they have more to lose than to gain by engaging in these debates. Control of the Ohio Supreme Court could swing either way in this election. Republicans could take a commanding 6-1 majority or Democrats might get a 4-3 edge for the first time in decades. The court obviously plays a significant role in interpreting.
laws including upcoming rulings on abortion and redistricting. So these are high stakes and voters have a lot to consider before casting their ballots.
Chris Quinn (23:57.562)
Well, voters should consider what this Supreme Court, with its Republican majority, did on issue one on gerrymandering. When the language is challenged, which said that this creates gerrymandering, which is an absolute falsehood, a lie by Frank Lerose and the ballot board, the court affirmed that language. That’s ridiculous. There is no definition of gerrymandering that covers what is in this. And yet they approve the lie because it satisfies their party’s needs.
People should think about that when they vote in these races. The Supreme Court of Ohio has been totally co-opted by party politics and it didn’t used to be that way. Everybody on it used to follow the law. They don’t now. You’re listening to today. go ahead.
Leila (24:41.912)
How closely do you think that people are paying attention to that? Do you think that that’s going to hang in people in most voters’ minds? I don’t think so at all.
Chris Quinn (24:47.612)
No. No, I know. think the Republicans will all win because people just vote for their party line. They want their team to win. But it should, because what they did on that was unconscionable. There is no way you can justify what they did there. And there have been a bunch of other decisions they’ve made where you could raise the same thing. This was the most blatant. They they basically projected this is an issue that would end gerrymandering in the state.
Lisa (24:57.393)
because what they did on that was unconscionable. There is no way you can justify what you did. And different from a of other decisions.
Lisa (25:11.507)
This is an issue that is in the state.
Chris Quinn (25:16.868)
And to fight it, they called it gerrymandering. It’s the Donald Trump tactic of whatever sin he commits. He says his opponent commits the sin. The Supreme Court’s supposed to be the legal minds, the ones that put party aside and look at things objectively. And they don’t. It’s all about their team. It was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen them do. And that’s the legacy of Sharon Kennedy as the Chief Justice. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.
As of now, any vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein on the Ohio ballot won’t be counted. Secretary of State Frank LaRose determined she changed her running mate after the deadline, disqualifying her candidacy. Stein has blasted that decision, but she finally took a concrete step to fight it. Laura, what’s she doing?
Laura (26:06.178)
She filed a federal lawsuit. So when they filed this, was too late under state law to replace, sorry, when they changed their running mate, it was too late under state law to replace Anita Rios’ name with Butch Ware’s. Accepted this Rios’ withdrawal, ruled that Stein didn’t have this running mate, any votes cast would not be counted. So Stein is arguing that this withdrawal letter was written and delivered behind Anita Rios’ back. And according to the lawsuit,
The Green Party official, the state party chair named Felina Farley, composed a letter, pasted in her signature for another document, turned it in without her knowledge or consent. Well, we talked to Farley. Basically, she’s saying that she’s being a scapegoat here, that they’re just trying any way they can to save face and get their votes counted. Honestly, this seems like a last ditch effort.
wasn’t in the wrong here. They got the paperwork. They did what is according to the law. mean, we have a whole lot of questions for LaRose about a lot of things, but this seems to be by the book. But the argument here is, well, it was done without my knowledge. I should, I don’t know, they still changed their running mate. So I don’t know what they really want out of this.
Chris Quinn (27:16.828)
Yeah, I don’t. Jill Stein is just the spoiler. mean, there are a whole bunch of Democrats that are now worried that she’s going to peel off enough votes in the swing states to give the election to Donald Trump, and she doesn’t care. She just doesn’t answer. I don’t care about that. So if she turns the country into a fascist nation, she’s OK with it. I’m surprised LaRose went the way he did, because allowing her votes to count would help his candidate, Donald Trump. But he’s doing the right thing. She shouldn’t have.
Laura (27:42.381)
You’re right.
Chris Quinn (27:45.966)
Her vote shouldn’t count. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Ohio voters have been barting elections offices with their absentee ballot applications and what seems like a large number have been rejected. Lisa, what are the reasons and can the wannabe voters do something to get their ballots?
Lisa (28:04.658)
Yes they can and it is a problem and like we said earlier in the podcast you really need to proofread, proofread, proofread before you do everything. So Cuyahoga County received 158,000 absentee ballot requests. 9,000 of them have been rejected. About 3,700 of them failed to provide a date of birth or got the date of birth wrong. Most of these, about half of them have been corrected. So 4,000 mistakes have been corrected.
Board of Election spokesman Mike West says, know, take your time with these things. Make sure you sign it. Make sure everything’s filled out before you send in the request form. Summit County had about 1200 problem requests. A third of those were date of birth errors, but also signature problems using a newly assumed name like a new married name or just leaving the signature blank or using a print signature instead of cursive.
In Franklin County, about 1600 ballots are on hold because of problems with the requests. The top three issues, no date, no signature, no driver’s license or Social Security number. Now your accurate and completed ballot request form has to be to your County Board of Elections by October 29th. You can vote in person if your form is rejected.
Chris Quinn (29:19.258)
Yeah, it’s surprising so many people are screwing this up, given all the controversy about voting. You would think that the one thing that you would really take care of, the details matter, is on those applications, but evidently thousands have not. It’s not the end of the world. Like you said, they can go and vote in person on election day, but it is instructive how many people have messed this up.
Lisa (29:45.43)
And you are given a chance to fix it. know, 4,000 have been fixed here in Cuyahoga County and there’s still time to do that. But yeah, again, this is so important. Make sure you fill out everything correctly. Everything’s signed, you know, just so we don’t have to deal with this.
Chris Quinn (30:01.114)
All right, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. We’ve hit the 30 minute mark. I’m going to have to leave it there. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Leila. Thanks, Laura. Thank you for listening. We’ll be back Tuesday talking about the news.
