Lynn Brown is an 80-year-old Democrat from Cleveland who’s been voting since she was 18. But when she tried to do so in March, she had a problem she’d never experienced.
Brown, who typically votes absentee, was unable to get a mail ballot. So she went in person to her local polling place, the first time she’s done so since Ohio passed one of the strictest voter ID laws in the country.
She’s still not quite sure what the issue was, but records called the issue “non-matching” identification. She filled out a paper ballot, known as a provisional ballot, and waited for elections officials to decide whether it should be counted. It wasn’t.