Reply #7: Ohio: Election-reform challenge denied

[MelissaB]

Election-reform challenge denied
Issue of signature-collectors unresolved

By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU


COLUMBUS — A three-judge panel yesterday threw out a challenge to a massive rewrite of Ohio election law headed for the Nov. 8 ballot, handing opponents their second judicial defeat.

But the question of whether state law permits ballot initiative efforts to use non-Ohioans to stand on street corners and ask registered voters to petition their government remains unresolved.

...snip

Ohio First, the religious non-profit that filed the challenge, said it will drop the court fight and concentrate instead on convincing voters to reject the four proposed constitutional amendments at the ballot.

Reform Ohio Now — a coalition of various Democrat factions, labor unions, environmental groups, and government watchdog organizations — has won certification of its petitions to place the amendments before voters. They would ask voters to:

• Take the process of redrawing congressional and state legislative districts after each U.S. Census out of the hands of elected partisan officials and give it to a panel on which no politician may sit.

• Strip the secretary of state of his election oversight authority and hand it to a new bipartisan elections board.

• Allow voters to cast absentee ballots up to 35 days before an election without having to state a reason.

• Overhaul campaign contribution limits.


More: http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050910/NEWS24/50910061/-1/NEWS