Ohio Republican Party: GOP Chairman Made Racist Remarks Because He Thought He Was Speaking Off the Record
After Ohio's Secretary of State Jon Husted announced last week that early-voting sites across the state would only be open on weekdays, many felt the restriction would unfairly impact "working people" in general, and minorities in particular.
Doug Priesse, chairman of the Republican Party in Franklin County (where the state capital is located) and a top adviser to Governor John Kasich was not among them.
"I guess I really actually feel we shouldn't contort the voting process to accommodate the urban - read African-American - voter-turnout machine," he told the The Dispatch in an email.
Ohio Democratic Party chairman Chris Redfern called Preisse's remark "patently racist," and a "flat out" admission that the Ohio Republican Party sought to use limited early-voting hours "to disenfranchise African-American voters."
Sticking up for Preisse, executive director of the Ohio Republican Party Matt Borges told the paper that Preisse "thought his comments...were off the record."
As ludicrous as it is to suggest that racist comments made off the record are somehow less racist, Borges' excuse on behalf of Preisse is rendered doubly absurd by the following sentence from The Dispatch:
[Preisse] called claims of unfairness by Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern and others "bullshit. Quote me!"
