Coalition of Civil Rights Organizations Statement on Chronology Of Communications ~ Status of Ohio’s

Coalition of Civil Rights Organizations Statement on Chronology Of Communications

Re: Status of Ohio’s Primary Election Cleveland, Ohio

The Greater Cleveland NAACP, Urban League of Greater Cleveland (ULGC), its’ Guild and the Greater Cleveland Chapter of National Action Network (NANGCC) released the following statement in clarification of recent communications on the status of Ohio’s Primary Election:

Due to the order of communications that have been released involving our organizations within the last few days, we are providing a chronological context for clarification.

March 17th, we released a joint statement from the coalition making our position clear about expectations moving forward. We expressed concern over the confusion created by the timing and way the postponement was handled. Below is an excerpt from the March 17th release:

As civil rights leaders, we believe that equal, fair and safe access to the ballot is a right that should be available to all citizens and we call on all the elected officials in Ohio to work together to ensure all votes that have been cast are counted and that all registered voters swiftly have an opportunity to vote in the primary election in Ohio. Absentee voting is a great way to ensure Ohioans remain safe as we navigate COVID-19 but, we object to any resolution that would deny voters their right to vote in person. Our ancestors sacrificed too much to gain access to the physical ballot box and to ever have that taken away would be a miscarriage of justice.

These uncharted waters that, we are in call for us to be more vigilant than ever before. It is in this spirit that we advocate for clear and consistent directions about this primary be delivered to all Ohioans in a timely manner. Any additional confusion created from our elected officials can cause mistrust in government and in the system of elections.

We stand ready to fight on behalf of all Ohioans to ensure they can exercise their franchise.

Please note that going forward, you will only receive notifications issued directly by the Coalition indicated above. We will continue to communicate with and provide feedback to all involved parties as resolutions are sought.