Ohio AG Yost says state law change criminalizes partnerships between elections officials and private groups, - cleveland.com

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Breaking a new Ohio law barring elections officials from collaborating with private groups is a first-degree misdemeanor and a felony for repeat offenders, state Attorney General Dave Yost has said in a new written legal opinion.

But the law change, which Republican state lawmakers passed as a response to elections officials’ accepting grants worth millions of dollars from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for elections administration during the 2020 presidential race, doesn’t apply to routine official elections work, Yost said.

Yost weighed in on the subject after county elections officials sounded alarms that the new law included as a last-minute amendment to last year’s state budget bill could have sweeping, unintended consequences. Elections officials asked Yost, the state government’s top attorney, specifically to interpret what the law means by its ban on “collaboration” between elections officials and private groups, which they said feasibly could bar elections officials from speaking at private schools or limit private political activities by county elections board members.

Because the law bars collaboration between election officials and private groups, without defining what “collaboration” is, Yost turned to dictionary definitions of the word.

He decided the new law’s ban would only apply when elections officials and private groups “jointly administer a project.”

“Because collaboration entails the joint administration of a project, it does not cover a great many of the tasks in which officials might engage,” Yost wrote in the opinion issued Tuesday.

County prosecutors asked Yost, the state government’s top attorney, to interpret the new law as they prepare for the upcoming primary elections in May. Groups that perform voter education and outreach also have asked for clarity. Elections officials also asked Yost what the penalty for breaking the law is since the new law change didn’t say.

The new law prohibits elections officials from accepting grants from private groups. But it goes further, flatly barring government officials from “collaborating” with any private organization on voter outreach, education, get-out-the-vote, absentee voting, elections official recruitment or training, or “any other elections-related purpose,” with a few specific exemptions.

The law seemed like it could block Secretary of State LaRose, who was among those who accepted Zuckerberg’s grants, which were funneled through a pair of national charities, from performing the myriad voter-outreach efforts he has launched since taking office in 2019. LaRose’s efforts have included accepting grants for personal-protective equipment from companies like Walmart and Anheuser Busch, promoting voting registration in a partnership with craft brewers and working with voting-rights advocates to reach out to Ohioans who were in danger of having their voter registrations canceled for inactivity.

But in the opinion, Yost said the new law’s effect is relatively limited and wouldn’t override other state laws that specifically authorize LaRose and other elections officials to provide information to the public about voting practices. He didn’t specify how the new law would apply in every feasible scenario, but wrote he tried to offer general guidance.

A LaRose, a Republican, is grateful for the new clarity Yost’s legal guidance provides, according to his spokesman, Rob Nichols.

“We are happy that the Attorney General has provided some guidance for our boards of elections on the issue as we prepare for the upcoming 2022 elections,” Nichols said.

LaRose had joined the Ohio Elections Officials Association in asking lawmakers to remove the part of the law that bans private “collaborations.”

In an interview, Aaron Ockerman, leader of the Ohio Elections Officials Association, which represents county boards of elections, said that Yost’s opinion seems to address many of his members’ most pressing concerns. For example, Yost specifically said under the new law, county elections board members still can hold positions with their local political parties, a widespread practice in Ohio.

“My initial read is that it’s helpful,” Ockerman said. “Obviously, we’re always going to want the law to be as clear as possible, so I don’t think this alleviates our desire to clean up the statute, but in the interim, I think it at least provides a base-level playing field for what we can or cannot do.”

Ockerman said he isn’t sure whether the law change still bars any common activities elections officials perform. He also said elections officials still want lawmakers to change the new law to remove the ban on “collaboration,” which, he said, would make their jobs clearer.

“We know now that we can have a booth at the county fair... But if we get a call from the League of Women Voters asking, ‘Can we collaborate on this project together?’, we are going to have to run it by the county attorney,” he said.

Jen Miller, president of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, said Wednesday that she was still reviewing Yost’s legal guidance and that her group hasn’t yet formed an opinion about it.

Senate President Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican who backed the law change, has said he doesn’t think it lacks clarity. But, he’s said he’s open to hearing elections officials’ concerns.

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source: https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/01/ohio-ag-yost-says-state-law-change-criminalizes-partnerships-between-elections-officials-and-private-groups-but-most-routine-work-is-ok.html

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