With today’s Supreme Court ruling upholding early voting all the way up to Election Day in Ohio, and with Secretary of State Jon Husted’s directive establishing uniform early voting hours across the state, one of the major road blocks for Ohio voters has been removed.

“We commend Secretary of State Husted for moving quickly to establish these new voting hours. This step will help inform voters and avoid further confusion at the polls. Most importantly, voters who need early access to the polls will be able to take advantage of these extended weekend hours,” said Catherine Turcer, director of Common Cause Ohio’s voter protection program.

However, Turcer urged Husted to take additional steps to protect Ohioans’ voting rights. She said Husted should reconsider a directive in which he banned county officials from communicating via telephone or email with absentee voters whose envelopes are incorrectly filled out. “Left untouched, the order could lead to hundreds of ballots being disqualified,” Turcer warned.

“It’s now more critical than ever those voters fill these forms out absolutely perfectly,” Turcer said. “In the past, simple errors like inverting two digits of a driver’s license number could have been remedied by a simple phone call. Now boards of elections are banned from picking up the phone to fix a clerical error. Those ballots will likely be thrown away now.”