House Bill 472 had one job: require Ohio's mail-in voters to include a copy of their driver's license or state ID with their absentee ballot. It passed the legislature. It sat on Governor Mike DeWine's desk. And on Friday, the Republican governor picked up his veto pen.

With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?

DeWine, who has governed Ohio with the spine of a wet napkin for years now, explained his reasoning in terms that would make any DNC strategist proud. "House Bill 472 would not discourage fraud, would not add any real security, and would create an additional and significant burden for Ohioans who vote by mail," DeWine said. An additional burden. Showing ID. To vote. The thing you do at the liquor store, the pharmacy counter, and the TSA line without filing a civil rights complaint.

He went further: "This bill is not needed, because Ohio does an excellent job running elections." That's the kind of sentence that sounds reasonable until you remember it's the exact argument Democrats have used in every single state where voter ID legislation has been proposed. Nothing to fix, everything's fine, move along.

DeWine also offered what he apparently considered a technical objection, arguing that "requiring the photo ID for the mail-in ballot process does not provide election officials with any opportunity to verify if the ID picture matches the face of the voter." In other words, because election officials can't physically look at your face through an envelope, there's no point asking who you are at all. By that logic, we should abolish signatures on checks — nobody compares those either.

The bill, sponsored by Republican state Representative Jodi Salvo of Bolivar and opposed by Democrat Representative Christine Cockley of Columbus, wouldn't have taken effect until November 2027. That's a full year and a half of runway for implementation. This wasn't some rushed, last-minute power grab. It was a modest, common-sense verification step with a generous timeline — and DeWine still couldn't stomach it.

As American Wire News reported, the veto landed on the same weekend DeWine went on national television to defend keeping Haitian TPS holders in the country, publicly opposing the Trump administration's deportation efforts. Two headlines, one weekend, both placing DeWine squarely on the opposite side of his own party's voters on the two issues they care about most: election integrity and immigration enforcement.

The DeWine defense, if you can call it that, rests on the idea that Ohio elections are already secure. Fair enough — let's test that. If they're so secure, what's the harm in one more verification step? Nobody argues that seatbelts are unnecessary because most drivers don't crash. The whole point of security measures is that they exist before something goes wrong, not after.

Republicans in the Ohio legislature now face a choice: override the veto or accept that their own governor just handed Democrats their talking point for the next two election cycles. Every time voter ID comes up in any state, opponents will now cite Ohio's Republican governor agreeing with them.

Voter ID polls above 80% approval with the American public. It polls even higher with Republican voters. And a Republican governor just vetoed it — not because the policy was flawed, but because he decided the "burden" of copying your driver's license was too much to ask of the people choosing who runs the country.

Somewhere, a Democrat strategist is writing a thank-you note.