Maria Elena Scott
The symposium also featured panels with state supreme court justices, law experts and elected officials.
During a keynote speech at a democracy symposium hosted by Cleveland State University's law school on Friday, former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor highlighted recent Ohio voter purges and gerrymandering among failures evident in the American system.
“Our democracy needs a government by, for and of the people. And you would presume by that, that the people rule, like what democracy says,” O’Connor said. “Well, the people would rule if they didn’t have impediments to that.”
O’Connor also spoke on voter ID restrictions, gerrymandering and low voter turnout.
“Without voting there is no democracy, and one of the sad facts is that the United States has the least turnout when it comes time to vote in our democracy,” said O’Connor. “Of all the democracies of the world, the United States has the least turnout.”
In 2019, registered Ohio voters in the National Change of Address database were sent notices that they would be removed from voter rolls in four years unless they confirmed or updated their voter registration or address, signed a petition, submitted an absentee ballot application or voted before they would be removed from the rolls.
This February, LaRose instructed county election boards to send voters at risk of being removed additional notices. Voter registrations of those deemed inactive were set to be purged in July, but in June LaRose told county election boards not to remove voters until September, after August’s special election.
“Here’s the way I look at that: Unless you have proof that they died — in other words a death certificate — or there’s a change of address and they moved out-of-state, I don’t see the need for eradicating people who have once registered from the voting rolls,” O’Connor said.
Citing polls that found an overwhelming majority of Americans support policies like mandatory background checks and 30-day waiting periods in order to buy a firearm, O’Connor also spoke about elected officials not adequately representing their constituents.
“The question is do these representatives reflect what the citizens of Ohio would want to see happen…The question is are the representatives representative of the people in their district and is the state legislature representative of the will, the wish, the direction for the state of Ohio?” said O’Connor.
While the former chief justice voiced support for reforms like increased civics education in schools to engage voters and less restrictive voter registration and ID policies, her focus continues to prioritize redistricting in Ohio.
"If Ohio is able to break the back of gerrymandering and elect a legislature of 10 congressionals that go to Congress, it's going to influence the policies that come out of Washington, so that's the chain reaction when we talk about redistricting," O'Connor said. "It's not just about your neighborhood, it's about this country."
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