By Jala Forest / Broadcast version by Mary Schuermann
Reporting for the Kent State-Ohio News Connection Collaboration

Kendra Byrd was born and raised on Warren's east side. Gun violence hit close to home for her in 2009 when her nephew was shot and killed. His murder has not been solved.

Byrd, who teaches at Warren G. Harding High School, is concerned that gun violence in her Northeast Ohio city has increased over the last several years.

"There are programs that people are trying to set up to curb violence, to give kids other things to do as opposed to hanging out in the streets," Byrd said. "But in the end, it's an individual thing. Parents have to be more responsible for their own children. People have to be responsible for themselves."

Former students of Byrd's have been killed due to gun violence in the city, as well.

"It is so traumatic. That's the part of education they don't teach about. How many kids do I have to watch have shorter lives?"

Gun violence has been recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a public-health issue. More than 1,400 people are killed by gun violence each year in Ohio, based on data from the CDC and FBI presented by the Giffords Law Center. And that number is trending upward.

Black Ohioans are disproportionately impacted by gun violence and the firearm homicide rate among Black males aged 15-34 is 25 times higher than white males of the same age group. Black men make up 7% of Ohio's population, but account for 64% of the state's gun homicide victims.

Community gun-violence is a form of assault that takes place between non-intimately related individuals in cities and neighborhoods, according to the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, a nonprofit that researches its effects. Black and brown communities are disproportionately affected by gun violence as the result of income inequality, easy access to guns by individuals living in high-risk areas, underfunded housing and poverty.

"These guns find their way into low-wealth, low-resource neighborhoods in a way that good education and jobs seemingly cannot," said the Rev. Dr. Jack Sullivan Jr., the executive director of the Ohio Council of Churches.

The OCC, based in Columbus, is a partnership between a variety of religious organizations throughout Ohio. Gun violence reduction work is the group's priority-it partnered with the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence organization and is approaching the problem by educating the public about the crisis of gun violence and vocalizing its concerns and plans with the state.

"They're working with people to talk about both policies and practices, raise issues with our legislators and our civic leaders to get them to enact what some people say are common sense gun laws," Sullivan said.

In Warren, a city of about 39,000, the median household income is only $27,108, while the federal poverty threshold for families in the United States is about $52,000.

Between 2017 and 2021, there were 47 homicides in Warren-more than 90% were committed with guns according to the city of Warren's annual report. Over the last two years, the police department's Street Crimes Unit conducted house raids, made traffic stops and used confidential informants as a strategy to target those suspected of possessing illegal firearms.

"We were able to take a record number of illegal guns off of the streets," said William D. Franklin, the city's mayor. "Over 400, plus illegal weapons, and we had them destroyed."

Franklin and the Warren Police Department established the Police and Community Trust Initiative in the summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd. The initiative is a coalition between residents and law enforcement officials that focuses on building unity. The group consists of community activists, educators and members of the clergy who were selected by Franklin and Eddie Colbert, who is the director of Public and Safety Service.

"We have set out an initiative to try to increase and promote police and community relationships to build better relationships between the community and law enforcement," Franklin said. "That's an ongoing process."

A spike in gun homicides in 2022 led Warren residents to request formal meetings with city leaders and law enforcement officials to express their concerns about the rise of gun violence in their neighborhoods and the need for better security and protection.

Helen Rucker, the councilwoman at large in Warren, said the city took their concerns into consideration and took action.

"Warren was in a financial position where we could step up," Rucker said. "We have been going through a financial crisis for over 10 years. And now we're able to buy new equipment, new vehicles and cameras and that sort of thing that these residents are asking for. So we've been able to respond better."

In 2020, the homicide rate in Cleveland increased by 42%. Between 2017 and 2019, almost 90% of homicides were committed with firearms. There were 61 homicides in Cleveland through June 2022-52 of those homicides involved a firearm. In early June, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb addressed the issue of gun violence in the city at a press conference, demanding state legislators take action on stricter gun legislation.

"As the mayor of Cleveland, I feel paralyzed and handcuffed by the lack of real comprehensive gun legislation in Congress," Bibb said, "and the fact that we have a state that doesn't give me, as mayor, the tools I need to combat the illegal traffic of guns that plague our city, day in and day out."

The city will use a grant of $1.7 million from the governor's office to pay for programs to keep adolescents out of gangs, to help expand violent crime reduction teams and to buy the National Integrated Ballistics Network, a national database of digital images of spent bullets that are used to match weapons to gun-related crimes.

Like Warren, the city of Cleveland is also attempting to build a bridge among Cleveland law enforcement and its residents. In 2021, Cleveland voters passed cIssue 24, which gave civilians more control of police discipline and policies. The Cleveland Community Police Commission was established in 2015 by a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), following a 2014 investigation of the Cleveland Division of Police. Its purpose is to bring input from residents of Cleveland communities on the process of police reform.

"I think we've got to figure out a way to get good jobs with good benefits [and] good salaries into communities with low resourcing [and] low wealth," Sullivan said, "and help people to have the ability to have sustained lives and communities that are renewable sources of income that keep them going and keep them afloat."

This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation

Lawmakers in Annapolis plan to introduce a bill to require a special election if a lawmaker is appointed to a seat in the first half of their term.

Maryland's constitution requires the political party committee in the district the former lawmaker represented to pick a replacement to fill the seat. The recommendation then is sent to the governor, who usually approves the person.

Del. Linda Foley, D-Montgomery County, the sponsor of the bill, said voters are sometimes represented by an appointed lawmaker for as long as four years.

"You end up with a rather large percentage of the General Assembly then being appointed and not elected and not facing the voters," Foley pointed out. "This has been an ongoing debate about whether this is a democratic way to replace people."

Nearly a quarter of state legislators in Maryland, including Foley, started in the legislature by political appointment, rather than an election.

The bill would not do away with the appointment process entirely. State legislators serve four-year terms, running in midterm elections. An appointment would be made, though any lawmaker appointed in the first half of the term would have to run in a special election held during the Presidential primary and general elections.

Foley emphasized the bill is not meant to fill every vacancy with a special election, a process she said would be costly.

"There is a cost factor to holding elections all the time and it's not insubstantial," Foley acknowledged. "Not to say that you can put a price on democracy, but you do have to consider what's the cost of doing this. Two years in office without having to face the voters isn't as problematic as four."


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By Marilyn Odendahl for The Indiana Citizen.
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the Indiana Citizen-Free Press Indiana-Public News Service Collaboration.

For St. Joseph County Circuit Court Clerk Amy Rolfes, the statistics only confirmed what she had been seeing and hearing from voters in the days and weeks leading into the Nov. 5 election.

Nearly 59,000 registered voters in the Northern Indiana county cast a ballot either by mail or by going to the polls before Election Day, topping the number of voters who visited the polls on Nov. 5 by more than 5,000.

However, Rolfes already knew early voting was popular by the public's reaction to St. Joseph County's third early-voting site that was opened this year for the first time. The new polling place was opened two weeks before the general election in Center Township's public library, located in the southern portion of the county.

The site was busy every single day it was operating, Rolfes said, and voters were thanking the staff giving them a convenient place to vote.

"Clearly the voters have spoken," Rolfes said. "They enjoy early voting."

The final vote tallies from the November election show the popularity of early voting was similar across the state to what Rolfes saw in St. Joseph County. According to data from the Indiana Secretary of State, 1.6 million eligible Hoosier voters - 54% of all who cast a ballot in the 2024 general election - voted either absentee or in person prior to Election Day. Comparatively, 1.87 million registered Indiana voters - 61% of those who voted - went to the polls early in the 2020 general election.

Despite the early voting numbers, Indiana's overall voter participation slipped this year. The secretary of state reported that 4.84 million Hoosiers were registered to vote in November, which is 86,085 more than were registered in November 2020. However 2.97 million, or 61%, voted in the 2024 general election, which is 94,349 fewer than the 3.07 million, or 65%, who voted four years ago.

Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, said she is disappointed that lawmakers are not doing more to improve the state's voter turnout numbers. Changes that would enable more Hoosiers to vote include same day voter registration, extending voting hours, and prohibiting candidates and their supporters from being any closer than, at least, 100 feet from the entrance of a polling site on Election Day.

"That's frustrating when clearly we have a big problem with turnout and zero problems in term of (election) security, yet our policymakers continue to make voting more restrictive in the name of making it more secure," Vaughn said. "We should be opening it up in the name of getting more people involved."

Demand continues for early voting

Like St. Joseph County, Clark County in Southern Indiana opened another early voting site for the November election.

Clark County Circuit Court Clerk Ryan Lynch said the second polling place, at the R.E.M.C. building along U.S. 60, was a more convenient option for voters in the middle and northern parts of the county. They did not have to travel to the courthouse in downtown Jeffersonville to vote.

Lynch said he believes the additional polling location motivated more people to vote early. Although the 22,522 voters in Clark County who voted either by mail or in-person before Election Day was down from the 28,666 who cast an early ballot in 2020, he does not expect interest in early voting to wither.

"I think we should definitely plan for big turnouts for early voting and put more resources into that to be prepared," Lynch said.

After the Marion County Election Board voted against extending early voting by two hours in the morning, Marion County Circuit Court Clerk Kate Sweeney Bell kept the polling site in the City County Building open until 10 p.m. the Saturday and Sunday before the Nov. 5 election. She said she added hours in the evening to make voting more convenient and had noticed that individuals who voted in the evening were wearing uniforms, indicating they were shift workers in hospitals, law enforcement agencies and private companies.

"It worked," Sweeney Bell said, but she did not commit to extending the hours in future elections.

In Marion County, 165,186, or 46% of registered voters, cast an absentee or early ballot in 2024. That was down from the 215,931, or 55% of registered voters, who voted before Election Day in 2020.

Not only were Hoosiers voting early this year, but they were, apparently, seeking answers to their voting questions sooner.

Ami Gandhi, director of strategic initiatives and the Midwest Voting Rights Program at the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, said during the early-voting period, more Indiana voters were calling the 866-OUR-VOTE election protection hotline the CLCCR established. Also, they were calling before the voter registration deadline passed and before absentee voting began.

"Across the board, we heard from voters in many different parts of the state who have an interest in expanded access to early voting, including voters who wanted more locations in their county (and) voters who were seeking expanded hours and who were shocked, and at times upset, by the relative early end time to early voting on any given day," Gandhi said.

A 'chilling impact,' low turnout

Wells and Whitely counties recorded the highest turnout rates in Indiana at 73% each in November. Marion and St. Joseph counties tallied the lowest turnout rates in the state at 55% each.

Sweeney Bell was disappointed by her county's low turnout. She said the first hour the polls were open on Election Day, about 40,000 people voted in Marion County; however, the rush of voters that usually comes between 4 and 6 p.m. never materialized.

"I'm baffled when people have such power and choose not the exercise it," Sweeney Bell said, adding that voting is essentially asking people who they want making the decisions that will affect every part of their lives. She said she is disappointed and not sure why people chose to stay home, rather than go vote.

"If I knew why, I could do something about it," Sweeney Bell said.

Rolfes tried to encourage voting in St. Joseph County by producing a couple of educational videos. She was allowed to use the local public television station's studio for an hour and half and she made four "super nerdy" videos, providing instruction on such things as voting by mail and using the voting machine to cast a ballot.

"Voting information is key to increasing voter turnout," Rolfes said.

Vaughn, of Common Cause Indiana, said she believes some new voters and naturalized citizens did not go to the polls this year because of the claim by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales about noncitizens voting in state elections. The two elected officials announced a few weeks before the Nov. 5 election, that they had asked the federal government to verify the citizenship status of 585,774 individuals on Indiana's voting rolls.

Calling the move by Rokita and Morales a "political stunt," Vaughn alleged the whole point of creating the list and the making announcement was to have a "chilling impact" to discourage people from voting. She said the election protection hotline did not get any calls from individuals who had their citizenship status challenged when they tried to vote, but some new voters did call the CLCCR hotline with concerns about causing trouble if they cast a ballot.

"How widespread that (was), I can't really say, but we, at least, heard from a few people and I've done this long enough to know when you get a few calls, there are many more people who didn't call," Vaughn said. "They just stayed home."

Intimidation incidents rising on Election Day

Along with Indiana voters asking for the location of their polling place and what they should do if the poll book does not have them listed as a registered voter, Gandhi said the election protection hotline also received calls about voter intimidation and aggressive electioneering at some polling places.

Reports of intimidation included Hamilton County, where a group of individuals were standing outside a polling place waving Make America Great Again flags and harassing voters, according to CLCCR and Vaughn.

Sweeney Bell said in Marion County, poll worker training was updated to include de-escalation techniques. The additional instruction was in response to the false rhetoric about insufficient election security and ineligible voting, she said.

"I have no worries about the security of the ballot," Sweeney Bell said. "I worry about the security of the poll workers."

That training appears to have helped defuse an incident at a Marion County polling place that is still being investigated and could result in criminal charges. According to Sweeney Bell and Vaughn, a man became belligerent and shouted profanities, after he was told he had to remove his Make America Great Again hat and turn his T-shirt, which identified a specific candidate, inside out. The man took off his shirt, revealing he was carrying two guns and a knife. The police were called and the poll workers were able to get the man through the voting process as quickly as possible so he left with harming anyone.

Sweeney Bell said a report detailing what happened is still being compiled. The Marion County Election Board is scheduled to meet Dec. 12, she said, and the members will talk about the incident.

"I don't think it's over," Sweeney Bell said.

In Clark County, Lynch said poll workers at one voting site were also able to defuse a situation on Election Day. Someone came to the polling place and wanted to sit and watch the machine that tabulates all the ballots. The workers at the site enlisted help from the clerk's office and the staff was able to mitigate the situation so the individual left and police did not have to be called, he said.

Vaughn said the misinformation and intimidation has gotten "exponentially worse" since 2016. Indiana's laws do not provide much protection or prevention of escalating situations, she said, noting the state allows people to electioneer within 50 feet of the polling place, one of the shortest distances in the country, and while the state permits voting sites to restrict weapons and post signs, the statute has no teeth, so officials can do little if anyone violates the restrictions.

"People (are) being very hostile to voters who they perceive to be making different choices from them," Vaughn said. "Hoosiers need to practice a lot more tolerance during election season than we have been. It just seems to be getting worse each presidential election year. We desperately need somebody to bring the temperature down."


Marilyn Odendahl wrote this article for The Indiana Citizen.


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As 2025 begins, there will be a record number of women serving in state legislatures nationwide.

More than 2,400 women will hold state legislative offices, representing more than 33%. Maine ranks ninth in the nation for statehouse gender parity with women holding 43% of seats.

Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, is pleased the trend is moving in the right direction.

"We need to see bigger jumps in terms of the numbers of women running and then getting elected in order to get closer to parity," Sinzdak pointed out. "We're certainly making progress but there's a ways to go."

Sinzdak explained when women run for office, they win, and it is good for democracy. She noted research shows women are more likely to build consensus among lawmakers and work across the aisle.

The election of Republican Kelly Ayotte as New Hampshire's next governor means a record 13 women will serve as a state chief executive next year, including Maine Gov. Janet Mills. Sinzdak argued the women serve as role models for other women to run for public office but cautioned recruitment efforts for women candidates are still lacking.

She acknowledged caregiving responsibilities often prevent women from running, along with the double standard they face from the public.

"Voters want them to be likeable as well as tough," Sinzdak observed. "Whereas for a lot of male candidates, they don't necessarily need to be likable they just need to be seen as being able to do the job."

Sinzdak emphasized women bring their unique life experiences to the job. In Maine, women lawmakers were instrumental in passing the state's new Paid Family and Medical Leave program and codifying reproductive freedoms into law. Still, the gains for women in statehouses nationwide come as Vice President Kamala Harris failed in her effort to become the first woman president.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.


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