New Ohio voter ID law may disadvantage college students

• Early voting for the May 2 election begins April 4.

State of play: Generally speaking, out-of-state students can either vote in their hometown elections or those where they attend school.

• Ohio drivers licenses, state IDs, passports and certain military IDs will be acceptable for voting at the polls — but college IDs will not.
• If an out-of-state student chooses to vote at an Ohio polling site, instead of in their home state, they would need to use a passport or acquire a free state ID to be eligible.

Threat level: The fear is that obtaining the ID card could disrupt an out-of-state student's financial aid, which is based in part on residency status at home, The Lantern reports.

• Anna Wagner, an assistant director for Student Leadership Development, told the campus newspaper that she advises the university's approximately 16,000 out-of-state students to vote in the spring election by mail.
• Voters can verify their absentee mail ballots by providing the last four digits of their social security number — no state ID required.

Separately, military service members and veterans may also be impacted by the new requirements.

• County-issued veterans cards are not eligible as voter IDs, Franklin County Recorder Danny O'Connor has complained.
• The bill also rolls back the deadline for boards of elections to receive mail-in ballots to four days after an election rather than 10.
• The change has some worried that overseas service members won't have enough time to return their absentee ballots.