New early voting rules were among the topics on the mind of Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted Thursday.

Husted addressed the 2014 Ohio Elections Officials Summer Regional Meeting held on the campus of Bowling
Green State University.
"This is a combination of the law and common sense and federal court rulings," he said of this
year’s voting schedule, which will include 28 days in 9,100 precincts statewide.
An order by a federal judge earlier this month allowed early voting in Ohio three days before elections.
A previous state law, passed in 2011, ended in-person voting on the Friday before a Tuesday election.

A lawsuit was filed by Pres. Barack Obama’s re-election campaign and Democrats in 2012 against Husted, a
Republican, over the law, according to the Associated Press.
Husted subsequently established early-voting hours for the state in keeping with the order.
On Thursday, he said that Ohio now offers more expansive options to vote "than almost any other
state in the country."
He recognized that the change in the schedule prompted by the court ruling could be a challenge for
elections officials.
However, stating that "everybody should vote by the same set of rules in Ohio," he told the
gathered officials "whether you like it, whether you’re disappointed by it," they should move
forward and educate people about voting in the state.
Husted pointed to recent reports, including one from the Presidential Commission on Elections and another
from the Pew Center on States, which gave Ohio good marks for their elections. Among the statistics: the
average time to wait to vote in-person in Ohio dropped from 15 minutes to approximately 11 minutes.
"We made a lot of progress in four years," he said.
"We continue to learn, we continue to get better, we continue to improve" in the elections
process.
He did note one issue in the reports: that Ohio does not yet offer online voter registration.
"Because the General Assembly still has not passed legislation authorizing us to do it," he
said. He noted that such a process would reduce costs and mistakes and prove more convenient for voters.

"It’s inexcusable" that the legislature has not moved on the issue, he said.
On the issue of voter fraud, he said "yes, it exists, but it’s rare, and we’re making it tougher to
do every day."