Ohio Voter Registration ponderings...

Recently I went into detail over on Glass City Jungle how the GOP and Blackwell are doing a better job in making voter registration easy for Ohio Voters than Democrats are doing as far as online accessibility.

Yesterday I read this Cleveland Plain Dealer article that focuses voter registration.

The director of the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services sent a stern letter to the directors of all 88 county JFS offices today, emphasizing the necessity of improving Ohio's compliance with the national "motor voter" law.

"The department has been contacted by numerous groups and individuals over the past couple of months regarding this issue," ODJFS Director Barbara Riley wrote. "Concerns have been expressed that state and county agencies are not doing all that we can to comply with the federal law.

"In addition, at a federal hearing focused on (the National Voter Registration Act) on March 14 of this year, public assistance agencies nationally were heavily criticized for poor performance and lack of compliance in helping citizens register to vote."

Considering my limited contacts with the Lucas County Department of Jobs and Family Services in addition to regular frustrating contact with the Child Support Division, part of this issue in my opinion is directly related to the professionalism of employees. Considering even getting a straight answer let alone resolution of an problem is rare, it doesn't surprise me that there is a problem taking an additional step to help make sure people are registered to vote. Even when contacting Columbus's office of Ohio Department of Job & Family Services has been not much different than locally. I realize some do believe this is purposeful, however I tend to believe it's more based on poor management and poor employee training/supervision.

This leads me to ponder further. While I am not going to type cast those who come into contact with ODJFS as leaning more Democratic, statistics do demonstrate some evidence that traditionally those of us at the lower income levels tend to be Democrats. How many of those who so far have never registered to vote would also be Democrats would only be speculation. But if we speculate that they would most likely be Democrats this is another situation where potential Democratic voters are not getting voter registration information.

Of course on the flip side, do most people who have thus far not bothered to register to vote really get out and vote let alone be informed voters is something to be considered as well. To be perfectly honest, I'd be happy if when I came into contact with these departments their staff performed their jobs in a consistent, helpful manner and while I understand the Motor Voter Laws need to be followed, I have a very strong feeling it's going to take more than a "stern letter".

(This was written for the Carnival of Ohio politics possible thanks to Paul Miller at Northwest Ohio Net. Make sure to stop by and visit him tomorrow morning to read what some of Ohio's best bloggers are writing about.)