Federal court sides with Ohio voters with disabilities, strikes down state law

By: Morgan Trau

Ohioans with disabilities and their families are cheering a new federal court ruling that strikes down a section inside a controversial voting law.

When Ohio passed legislation overhauling voting laws in 2022, Barbara Friedman Yaksic was worried about the impact it could have on her family.

“My brother and people like him have the right to vote,” Friedman Yaksic said in December of ’22.

Her brother Joel had a stroke two decades ago. While he lives in a nursing home, she has been his legal guardian. She, an attorney who advocates for voting rights, continues to fight to make sure he can cast his absentee ballot.

“My brother is very informed and a concerned voter,” Friedman Yaksic said Monday. “There’s absolutely no reason that it should be more difficult.”

House Bill 458 of the 134th General Assembly changed state law so the only people allowed to deliver a sealed absentee ballot besides the voter are members of the postal service or specific relatives. This includes a spouse, a parent, grandparent, child, sibling, aunt or uncle, niece or nephew.

It excludes caregivers, employees of a care facility, grandchildren, cousins, neighbors, friends and anyone else unrelated.

If anyone not listed returns the ballot, that would be a fourth-degree felony. If a voter receives a felony for helping their loved one, they would no longer be able to vote.

“If something happened to me, my husband — a brother-in-law — couldn’t do it,” Friedman Yaksic said.

Jen Miller with the League of Women Voters of Ohio filed a lawsuit with the ACLU, saying Ohio is violating the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and the Voting Rights Act.

Federal law states that voters with disabilities are allowed to “select a person of their choice to assist them with voting.”

“Many Ohio voters need to rely on grandkids, in-laws, roommates and neighbors to return their absentee ballot or assist in other ways,” Miller told me. “But those folks could have faced a felony sentence, which is wrong.”

Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan Entin explained the lawmakers probably didn’t mean to disenfranchise voters with disabilities.

“Legislators were concerned about the possibility of a practice called ballot harvesting — that some slimy, unethical or corrupt people will go and corral a whole bunch of votes, absentee ballots and turn them in in a way that undermines the integrity of the election,” Entin said.

To be clear, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Ohio leaders, like Sec. of State Frank LaRose, have acknowledged this, but Entin said this is another “preventative” step for them.

Both Miller and Friedman Yaksic think there is another motive.

“The people that are passing these laws think that the people that will be impacted by these laws wouldn’t vote for them — so they don’t want them to vote,” Friedman Yaksic said.

The League of Women Voters has been trying to prevent against restrictive voting changes, and is now championing the anti-gerrymandering constitutional amendment that was just certified to make the Nov. ballot.

“We need to have lawmakers who listen to us, the people of Ohio, right now because lawmakers know they will win their seat over and over again,” Miller said.

Judge Bridget Meehan Brennan at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio sided with Miller on access, striking down that specific provision of the law.

“The chances of getting this ruling overturned, at least at this stage, are pretty slim,” Entin said.

Friedman Yaksic said this is great news.

“We need to encourage and enable as many people as possible to exercise their right to vote,” she said.

We reached out to the defendants on the case: the attorney general’s office, sec. of state’s office and Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s offices. Only the AG’s office responded, saying that they are talking with the other defendants and “are considering all the options.”

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Federal court sides with Ohio voters with disabilities, strikes down state law