title:  Ohio Republicans Create First Step To Privatizing Elections, Would Charge People To Keep Polls Open
text: The Republican obsession with making it more difficult to vote reached its sickening, albeit inevitable, conclusion in Ohio. State Republicans approved an outrageous poll tax bill that would require Ohio voters to put up tens of thousands of dollars in a cash bond if they want to keep polls open during an election day emergency   with the possibility of not getting the money back.What was once considered a national duty and a democratic process that was the envy of the world has become diminished in recent years as Republicans have discovered that disenfranchisement of minorities and the poor gives them an electoral edge. Voter ID laws and so-called  poll tax  schemes have made it harder and harder for left-leaning demographics to actually get a voice in elections. In Ohio, Republicans just jumped the shark.The new bill could be considered the first step in the road to privatizing American elections. Rather than the government picking up the tab as part of its sacred obligation to free elections, the Ohio GOP   ever paranoid about  Big Gubmint  spending   will require regular voters to put up thousands of dollars to help pay to keep polls open long enough that people can actually vote. The bill is a reaction to a few emergencies in previous elections that caused voters to be unable to reach polling places   a major car accident along a highway and an election ballot malfunction, for example.An op-ed written by Republican Sen. Bill Seitz, the bill s author, shows just how warped the minds of the Voter ID wing of the Republican Party really is: Sadly, in both the November 2015 and March 2016 elections, rogue courts in Hamilton County issued orders extending polling hours. These orders cost Hamilton County taxpayers $57,000, and forced the inside poll workers to stay around for an extra 60 to 90 minutes after already working a 14-hour day. What Seitz doesn t mention is that the extra hour of work meant that thousands of people were allowed to engage in the democratic process and vote. That seems like a pretty big oversight.What Seitz surely knows is that these polling challenges disproportionately affect the poor. The Fox News viewer, average age of 68, is retired and therefore faces few obstacles to voting outside of figuring out how to DVR the latest Fox and Friends episode. Those who work all day and have young kids don t have that freedom. A car accident blocking the entrance to a polling place for even an hour may mean the possibility of not being able to vote at all. Mark Brickner, of the ACLU agrees: Maybe the polling place lost power, or there was a tornado, or the machines malfunctioned, and voters were not able to vote during the day,  he explained.  Now these people could be disenfranchised through no fault of their own. They can do the right thing and try to show up to vote, but they may not be able to wait around for hours if they have to work or go pick up their kids. Plus, [the cash bond provision] brings back a lot of ugly symbolism with the poll taxes of the past, when you had to pay to exercise your right to vote. It s hardly surprising that this is the new low to which the Republican Party would stoop. In a way, paying to vote represents the perfect union between their fanatical drive to privatize everything and their pathological need to keep the number of voters to a minimum. Naturally, even Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who billed himself as a  moderate  during his failed presidential bid, is thrilled by these dangerous ideas. The bill is being sent to his desk and he has shown no signs of not enthusiastically signing it.If it goes through, the crucial battleground state of Ohio will be one natural disaster away from asking its own voters to cough up tens of thousands of dollars just to vote in a presidential election. And a presidential election that could mean Donald Trump becomes president. The stakes have quite possibly never been higher and Republicans want to rig the game before it starts.Featured image via Library of Congress/Politico