Ohio prosecutors, elections officials, activists pushing for clarity on open-ended ‘Zuckerbucks’ elections la - cleveland.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- County prosecutors and voter-outreach advocates are questioning whether a low-profile elections-law change tucked into last year’s state budget could be used to charge elections officials with a crime for performing routine voter outreach.
State lawmakers have said that’s not what they intended to do when they passed the law, a response to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s providing millions of dollars for Ohio elections administration in 2020, a move that prompted suspicion from Republicans and others.
But in a recent letter to Attorney General Dave Yost, Seneca County Prosecutor Derek DeVine said the law is written so broadly that it conceivably could make it a first-degree misdemeanor for law enforcement to perform standard duties of protecting ballots, or for elections officials to work with private teachers or county groups like the League of Women Voters to explain how voting works.
And in his own letter to Yost, Greene County Prosecutor David Hayes has questioned whether it could bar county elections board members from serving in leadership positions in local political parties, a common arrangement.
“I can see where they were starting with the things they wanted to deal with,” DeVine, a political independent, said in a Thursday interview. “But the problem is when they wrote the language, they made it so broad that it prohibits public officials that are involved in the election from any activity related to voter education. So the way it was drafted, I think, it was just overly broad.”
“Any time that the law makes it a prohibition to do something and then provides a penalty then everyone is concerned,” Hayes, a Republican, said in an interview. “I can only tell you generally that it has caused consternation not only here in Greene County, but in other counties across the state.”
In September 2020, LaRose, a Republican, helped kick off a controversy by accepting a $1.1 million grant, informally termed “Zuckerbucks,” from a foundation helping to hand out $350 million that Zuckerberg donated for state elections costs across the country. The Facebook founder said he wanted to help defray the increased costs resulting from the coronavirus pandemic and prevent long lines and other elections problems. The funding was available for all counties, with the amounts varying on population, and could be used to fund personal protective equipment, voter outreach and other administrative costs.
But lawmakers and voters were suspicious about Zuckerberg’s motivations and thought it set a bad precedent for private corporations to help underwrite elections. As a result, some counties rejected the money after being approved for it, including Summit County, where Republican elections board members rejected a $580,000 grant in October 2020. Concerns about Facebook and its political influence have extended across the political spectrum, more recently intensifying among those on the right.
“I don’t think we wanted an outside influence to come in and tell the Secretary of State how to run an election,” state Sen. Matt Dolan, a Chagrin Falls Republican, said in July after passing the law change.
The new law prohibited elections officials from accepting grants from private groups. But it went 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.
After it passed in July, the law change quickly drew concern from voter-rights advocates, who said it could be used to block routine voter-outreach efforts like the myriad ones LaRose did for the 2020 election. LaRose partnered with craft brewers, large companies like Wal-Mart and Anheuser Busch, Black barbershops, professional associations representing lawyers and accountants, and more to supply personal-protective equipment, recruit poll-workers, encourage voters to update their registrations to avoid being purged for inactivity and more.
Senate President Matt Huffman, a Republican whose chamber added the voting language to the state budget, said at the time it was meant to prevent a group with a possible political agenda from trying to manipulate the results of an election by directing resources to a particular area.
“It’s got to be one of those things that you know it when you see it,” he said in July.
But the lack of clarity in the law led DeVine and Hayes, at the request of their county elections boards, to ask Yost, the state government’s top attorney, to clarify the scope of the law change. The two wrote letters to Yost shortly after the law took effect in October outlining their concerns.
In his letter, DeVine said the law conceivably could block elections officials from giving election education to students, especially at private schools, or block law enforcement from working on political campaigns since they also have responsibilities in securing ballots.
DeVine also asked Yost what the penalty would be for violating the law. He pointed to an Ohio law that makes it a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months and jail and a $1,000 fine, for an elections official to knowingly disobey elections law.
“We respectfully request that your office review the statute and our questions along with any other relevant inquiry regarding this matter,” DeVine wrote. “I understand that obtaining guidance prior to the upcoming November 2021 election is unlikely, but we would request your guidance on these issues as quickly as possible.”
Yost’s office has acknowledged receiving the letter, DeVine said. A spokesman for Yost didn’t return multiple messages for this story left over several days.
A coalition of voting advocacy groups also wrote Yost last week, asking him to issue an opinion clarifying the law.
“It leaves a lot to the imagination, and we want to make sure this is not a criminal act,” said Kayla Griffin, the leader of the Ohio chapter of All Voting is Local, which performs get-out-the-vote efforts and other elections advocacy in the Cleveland area.
Griffin said her organization, which was among those who contacted Yost’s office last week, is well-versed in the law and comfortable with what it can and can’t do. But she said uncertainty over the law could have a chilling effect, especially for smaller organizations.
“We need to know how folks are going to be able to engage,” she said. “How organizations, churches, fraternities, sororities, people who historically have been doing this work routinely for years, how will they engage on the ground with their elections officials?”
The Ohio Elections Officials Association, which represents county boards of election, is lobbying the legislature to remove the word “collaborate” from the law, according to Aaron Ockerman, the group’s executive director.
“I haven’t heard that we’ve stopped working with the Kiwanis Club or the League of Women Voters, but I think there’s enough consternation because of the uncertainty that there’s cause for concern, and they’re trying to figure it out,” Ockerman said.
Asked about possibly changing the law on Wednesday, Huffman said he’s open to hearing from the elections officials association.
“Obviously, what we’re trying to do here is we do not want especially out-of-state interests providing certain money in certain elections to help turn out the vote,” he said. “And that’s what’s happening with these grants.”
DeVine said that county officials are hoping for clarity before the May election season, which informally begins with candidate filing deadlines in February.
“I think there’s an awareness locally that this is a potential issue, and we’re hoping for some guidance from the attorney general’s office or maybe some type of legislative remedy from Columbus,” he said.
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source: https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/12/ohio-prosecutors-elections-officials-activists-pushing-for-clarity-on-open-ended-zuckerbucks-elections-law-change.html
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