ohio secretary of state

The House on Friday approved a sweeping measure that would, among many others things, expand voters' access to the polls. But Senate Republican leaders say that chamber will not take up the bill, calling it a power grab.

Frank LaRose was sworn-in as Ohio’s 51^st Secretary of State over the weekend before a crowd of friends, colleagues and politicians from both sides of the aisle.

When Ohio State elections law professor Daniel Tokaji tells colleagues from other parts of the world about how the United States picks election officials, he says they're stunned.

"And not in the good way," says Tokaji.

That's because in a large portion of the U.S., elections are supervised by an official who is openly aligned with a political party. It's a system of election administration that's routinely come under scrutiny over the past two decades, and did again in this year's midterms especially in Georgia, Florida and Kansas.

In the months leading up to the midterms, Ohio election officials tried to make their computer systems harder to hack.

They role-played how to handle cyberattacks and received help from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

They say last week’s vote went off without major cybersecurity problems. Now they have to prepare for an even bigger election—the 2020 presidential race.

Ohio’s incoming Secretary of State is taking some heat over one of the people he picked to co-chair his transition team – Ken Blackwell, who’s been blasting Democrats in the ongoing vote count in Florida. But Sen. Frank LaRose (R-Hudson) is standing by his choice.