An advisor to Gov. John Kasich is taking heat for comments that Democrats say point to a Republican effort to suppress black turnout in Ohio in November.
“I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine,” Doug Preisse, chairman of the county Republican Party and elections board member, told the Columbus Dispatch. “Let’s be fair and reasonable.”
Preisse voted against weekend early voting hours, days that have traditionally resulted in high African-American turnout.
“How far should the taxpayers be asked to go to accommodate that political operation? That’s where we’re having a difference of opinion,” he told Buzzfeed.
After weeks of criticism, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted ordered all Ohio counties to have universal early voting hours, from Monday through Friday until 7 p.m. Husted said the move would “level the playing field” and “create an environment where the election can be about candidates and their ideas, not the process for electing them.”
