New directives from the Secretary of State, court challenges, District Court opinions overturned by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals....  What is a poor county board of elections official to do?

It all started when the legislature hurried through HB 3, a more than 300 page bill, overhauling our elections systems to counter the bogus claim of massive "voter fraud" in Ohio. Virtually all of the testimony in committee hearings by interested parties and good government groups, including Common Cause/Ohio, warned of the dangers of passing this legislation without more time and careful scrutiny.  There was also a great deal of testimony from the same groups about the dire consequences of implementing new ID requirements for voting, and about how it would disenfranchise a certain group of voters, which includes seniors, the poor and student populations, especially when there was no proof of any real problem with "voter fraud."

The bill was passed along party lines with only one Republican voting no, and with no attention paid to our dire predictions about the new ID requirements.  Here we are a little over a week before the election, and the legality of these requirements is still in question.  After the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, Sunday, blocked an emergency order issued by Judge Marbley of the U.S. District Court in Columbus, on Thursday, to set aside ID requirements for absentee voters, Subodh Chandra, the attorney for the plaintiffs, stated to the press:  "We hope that the 6th Circuit is not taking the position that one must permit an election to be a train wreck before one tries to stop the wreck."