07/06/2026
What you don’t know can hurt you and our community. In the Book of Hosea, chapter 4 verse 6, it says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Before the 2026 elections there is so much that we must learn and do. If we don’t make sure that our communities become knowledgeable about the changes in voter laws we will suffer destruction.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the strongest civil rights protection American voters had. A series of Supreme Court rulings — culminating in Louisiana v. Callais in April 2026 — have now nearly eliminated its enforcement mechanisms.
Many of the systems that protected our vote have been weakened or destroyed.
For the next couple of weeks, we want to focus on some of the changes that have occurred in the State of Ohio. In August of 2020, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose directed election officials around the state to limit the number of absentee ballot drop boxes to one location in each county. In 2023, this administrative rule was written into a bill and voted into law by the Ohio legislature. Gov. Mike DeWine signed it, and it took effect in April 2023.
On January 6, 2023, Ohio House Bill 458 passed, and went into effect that April requiring photo ID for in-person voting. The Bill also shortened the deadline for requesting absentee ballots, the period of time during which absentee-ballot voters could fix errors on their ballots and limited the documents new voters could use when registering to an Ohio driver’s license number, an Ohio state ID number, and the last four digits of a Social Security number.
It further limited curbside voting to people with a disability who cannot physically enter a polling place and it was a crime for someone to possess or return another voter’s absentee ballot unless they are an election official, a mail carrier, or a spouse, parent, stepparent, child, stepchild, sibling, grandparent, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, or in-law of the voter. This portion of the law was later challenged in federal court by an Ohio woman with a disability. In July 2024, a judge ruled that voters with disabilities had the right to have a trusted person of their choice deliver their ballot.
Please take the time to become familiar with these changes and share your knowledge with others. Although there are many attempts being made to interfere with and suppress our votes, we shall overcome.
