Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Ohio won't join states covering postage for absentee voters

absentee ballots

Ohio will not provide envelopes with prepaid postage to voters for the 2020 general election.

Logan Cyrus/Getty Images

Ohio voters will have to provide their own postage if they opt to return their ballots by mail this fall.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose wanted to purchase $3 million worth of stamps with federal Covid-19 relief funding to put on envelopes for the record number of absentee ballots expected this fall. But a budgetary oversight board run by his fellow Republicans rejected that proposal Monday.

Voters in most states have to put their own 55-cent stamp on their mail ballots. But 17 states have permanent policies to provide postage-paid envelopes to absentee voters, and another three have decided to do the same for the November presidential election.


Appealing to the board was LaRose's last attempt to add Ohio to that roster in time for the November election, after the General Assembly didn't approve his request for funding earlier this year.


states that pay for postage on mail-in ballotsSource: National Conference of State Legislatures


Despite garnering bipartisan support from the state's election administrators, LaRose was unable to convince the Controlling Board, which oversees some state fiscal activities. The four GOP legislators on the panel opposed the proposal while the two Democrats backed it. The other member, the state budget director appointed by the governor, did not vote.

The Republicans said such a policy change should be made by the General Assembly, which covered the postage costs of a primary postponed at the last minute in March and switched to almost all vote-by-mail because of the pandemic.

"Ohio has a sound elections system, but today was another missed opportunity by the Legislature to make a small change, without an impact on our state budget, that would yield a big improvement," LaRose said after the board vote.

His office has already mailed absentee ballot applications to Ohio's 8 million voters. As of last week, more than 1 million had completed requests and the state expects that number to double. Mail ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 2 and received within 10 days of Election Day in order to be counted. Ohioans also have the option to drop off their absentee ballot at their county elections office before polls close on Election Day.

No Republican has ever won the White House without Ohio, and Donald Trump carried its 18 electoral votes by a comfortable 6 points last time, but his campaign and Joe Biden's team both now view the state as essentially a tossup.

Read More

Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

The B-2 "Spirit" Stealth Bomber flys over the 136th Rose Parade Presented By Honda on Jan. 1, 2025, in Pasadena, California. (Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

After a short and successful war with Iraq, President George H.W. Bush claimed in 1991 that “the ghosts of Vietnam have been laid to rest beneath the sands of the Arabian desert.” Bush was referring to what was commonly called the “Vietnam syndrome.” The idea was that the Vietnam War had so scarred the American psyche that we forever lost confidence in American power.

The elder President Bush was partially right. The first Iraq war was certainly popular. And his successor, President Clinton, used American power — in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere — with the general approval of the media and the public.

Keep ReadingShow less
Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are
a close up of a typewriter with the word conspiracy on it

Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are

The Comet Ping Pong Pizzagate shooting, the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and a man’s livestreamed beheading of his father last year were all fueled by conspiracy theories. But while the headlines suggest that conspiratorial thinking is on the rise, this is not the case. Research points to no increase in conspiratorial thinking. Still, to a more dangerous reality: the conspiracies taking hold and being amplified by political ideologues are increasingly correlated with violence against particular groups. Fortunately, promising new research points to actions we can take to reduce conspiratorial thinking in communities across the US.

Some journalists claim that this is “a golden age of conspiracy theories,” and the public agrees. As of 2022, 59% of Americans think that people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories today than 25 years ago, and 73% of Americans think conspiracy theories are “out of control.” Most blame this perceived increase on the role of social media and the internet.

Keep ReadingShow less
We Can Save Our Earth: Environment Opportunities 2025
a group of windmills in the sky above the clouds

We Can Save Our Earth: Environment Opportunities 2025

On May 8th, 2025, the Network for Responsible Public Policy (NFRPP) convened a session to discuss the future of the transition to clean energy in the face of some stiff headwinds caused by the new US administration led by Donald Trump. The panel included Dale Bryk, Director of State and Regional Policy at the Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program and a Senior Fellow at the Regional Plan Association, and Dan Sosland, President of the Acadia Center. The discussion was moderated by Richard Eidlin, National Policy Director for Business for America.

 
 


Keep ReadingShow less