Ohio Residents Storm State House: Protest Vote Suppression
Michigan Independent Media Center
 
Toledo, Ohio - Hundreds of angry Ohio residents marched through the streets of Columbus — Ohio’s capital — [last week] and stormed the Ohio State House, defying orders and arrest threats from Ohio State Troopers. "O-H-I-O  suppressed democracy has got to go," they chanted. After troopers pushed and scuffled with people, nearly a hundred people took over the steps and entrance to the State’s giant white-columned capitol building and refused repeated orders to disperse or face arrest. People prepared for arrests, ready to face jail — writing lawyers’ phone numbers on their arms, signing jail support lists and discussing non-cooperation and active resistance (linking arms, but not fighting back).


Protesters storm the Ohio State House on November 3.

…The Ohio State House takeover was the culmination of an eight-hour long afternoon of protest at the state capitol by Ohio student and youth groups (The Columbus and Toledo Leagues of Pissed Off Voters, and Reach Out-Bowling Green) together with Columbus residents followed by a 300 strong 6pm march led by the Central Ohio Peace Network. The earlier speak-out featured a litany of people who experienced or witnessed voter suppression, intimidation and disenfranchisement before and during the election. Thousands of Ohio voters had been disenfranchised by partisan poll challengers, intimidation incidents, polling places opening late, lines up to four and five hours long - often in the rain.

Here are a few of their stories:

Holly Roach of Toledo, Ohio, spoke of her 74-year-old father, Frank Roach and her 89-year-old grandmother, Hazel Thompson, requesting absentee ballots in early October. Hazel Thompson is homebound and Frank Roach had been scheduled for heart surgery on November 2. Absentee ballots never arrived. They were told by the County Voting Commission that they could not vote with either regular or provisional ballots, because they had already requested absentee ballots and Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell had issued a directive forbidding [the use of] provisional ballots by people who applied for absentee ballots and who had not received them (including some US service people recently returned from Iraq). A lawsuit late in the afternoon of November 2 by a voter in Lucas County led to a late afternoon order by Judge David Katz of the Northern District of Ohio instructing the Ohio Secretary of State to immediately advise all county boards of election to advise polling precincts in their counties to issue provisional ballots to voters in this situation.

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