Written by Brian Massie, Lake County resident 40 years

This is the second part of an ongoing series of articles dealing with the unfairness in the Ohio Revised Code section 149.45 (D) (1) that allows a certain class of protected government workers to redact their addresses on the Lake County Board of Election voter rolls.

We contend that this opportunity to provide the same level of protection must be available to ALL residents of Lake County. Here is part 1 of our series:

https://lobbyistsforcitizens.com/2020/12/07/are-lake-county-trump-supporters-at-risk-of-revenge-from-the-left/

Here are the protected workers covered in ORC 149.45 (D) (1):

• Assistant Prosecuting Attorney
• Bailiff
• BCI Investigator
• Correctional Employee
• EMS Medical Director
• Prosecuting Attorney
• Youth Services Employee
• EMT
• Firefighter
• Judge
• Magistrate
• Parole Office
• Peace Office
• Probation Officer
• Board of Pharmacy Employee
• County or Multicounty Corrections Officer
• Community – Based Correctional Facility Employee
• Member of EMS Cooperating Physician Advisory Board
• Federal Law Enforcement Officer

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I sent the following email to the Lake County Board of Elections:

To the Lake County Board of Election officials,

My wife and I are registered voters.  We recently became aware of O.R.C. 149.45 (D) (1) “Request to Redact Address”. This code section offers protection to only certain groups of governmental employees.

We believe that all citizens have the right to have their addresses redacted from the voter rolls.  Our political leanings put us at risk from the nefarious groups creating turmoil in our nation.  It would be very easy for “evil doers” to create a “hit list” of Trump supporters from your voter database. 

Since we have zero confidence in the Lake County Sheriff’s Department to protect us, the risk is unacceptable to us.

We demand that our home address be redacted from the voter rolls.  We await to hear from you.

Brian Massie

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Here is the response we received from Mr. Michael DeLeone:

Mr. Massie:

I have reviewed your request for redaction. Please be advised that R.C. 149.45(D)(1) only allows for redaction of information regarding designated public service workers. A designated public service worker is defined in R.C. 149.43(A)(7). You have not presented any information that you qualify as a designated public service worker, thus it would be illegal to redact the information you request. If you do qualify as a designated public service worker, please provide this information. Otherwise, I will consider this request concluded.

If you believe that all citizens should have the right to redact their information, please contact your local state senator or state representative, as only the state legislature can amend these statutes.

Michael L. DeLeone
Assistant Prosecutor, Lake County

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So the rights of public service workers are sacred, but those of the average private sector worker are not? Do you see how it works? We must have lobbying efforts to afford the private sector workers the same protection as the public service workers.

Who is looking out for us?

LFC will be contacting the local State Representatives and State Senators to determine if they are interested in protecting the average citizens. Stay tuned, we will continue to update our readers on this issue. It cannot stand!

Look for part 3 in this series to be published very soon. We will pull back the curtain on the threats made by Lake County citizens to Trump supporters.

*****

Categories: Community Activism, Uncategorized

Tags: FT