Ohio Secretary of State and Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell’s forays into the 2004 election are by now infamous. A New York Times editorial provided a rundown of his election law history, including an “almost certainly illegal” order that county boards of elections reject voter registrations completed on a certain kind of paper. Now, with critics charging that recently-enacted Ohio legislation governing voter-registration would create unnecessary roadblocks for registrars trying to sign up voters, Blackwell has been thrust back into the voting-laws limelight.

As secretary of state, Blackwell did not vote on Ohio House Bill 3. Nor did he sign it into law. But he is responsible for enforcing voting laws. In response to criticism leveled at HB 3, Blackwell’s office has filed revisions to the new legislation.

The first change proposed by Blackwell would clarify the amount of compensation voter-registration volunteers can accept without being designated paid registrars and forced to take an internet training course developed by the secretary of state. Critics had argued that under the new laws accepting a can of soda, for instance, would make someone a paid registrar.

The second change has to do with whether registrars can submit voter forms via the mail to a board of elections or the secretary of state instead of submitting them in person (as HB 3 stipulates). Submitting them improperly, of course, is a felonious offense, so the distinctions drawn in HB 3 are important. The proposed change would allow voter forms to be mailed in.

Blackwell’s proposed revisions will be considered at a June 26 meeting of the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR). But Peg Rosenfield, elections specialist for the League of Women Voters of Ohio, isn't impressed with the proposed changes. "My initial reaction is they’re moderately less bad," she told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Upon hearing that the new rules would allow paid registrars to use the U.S. Mail to submit voter forms, Rosenfield observed: "I guess it's OK to use the Postal Service, but you can't use FedEx. These people don’t live in the real world."