have to use a friend of mine s line. under advice from counsel, i am just going to say let s open the polls and let the people vote. let them be heard. that was thomas richie, sr., a democratic member of the montgomery county ohio board of elections. today, mr. richie along with dennis lieberman were hauled before a state hearing and forced to argue that they should not be fired by ohio s republican secretary of state who is threatening to fire them. potengsomy fireable offense is that they voted to expand early voting hours in their county in ohio. joining us now for the interview are the two democratic members of the montgomery county ohio board of elections, dennis lieberman and thomas richie sr. i appreciate your time. thank you. mr. lieberman, let me start with you. how important was early voting on weekends in your county, in
primary, the presidential primary this year. just a couple months earlier. so he knew we had it. and my thought was that if he knew we had it and he didn t address it, then we were free to fill in those blanks. and that s what we did. my my motion was to accept the directive that he had for weekdays and simply keep the weekends that we had decided. and we got a letter telling us to rescind the motion or be fired. and i refused to rescind the motion. mr. lieberman, mr. richie, democratic members of the montgomery county ohio board of elections i know that this is yet unresolved, still a pending matter. i know it therefore takes some guts to talk about it publicly. but thank you for being willing to explain it to us. the whole country is paying a lot of attention to ohio for good reason. thank you very much.
blowout. well, that location you just saw there, the doorstep of the secretary of state s office was the scene of another small d democratic show of force. give the people the right to vote. let s open the polls and let the people vote. let them be heard. that was a rally at the ohio secretary of state s office today s. it was in support of these two gentlemen you see framed here. tom richie, sr. on the left and dennis lieberman on the right. why were all these people in ohio rallying behind these two meptoday at the secretary of state s office? because they re threatening to fire them. tom richie and dennis lieberman may lose their jobs this week for the crime of voting to expand voting hours in their county. tom richie and dennis lieberman are the two democratic members of the montgomery county board of elections.
and dennis lieberman were joined by the two republicans on the board of elections in voting to expand early voting hours in montgomery county. the county had voed to do that in 2008 and the county voted to do it again in 2012. they wanted to offer early voting this year in nights and weekends and it was a bipartisan vote in favor of it in montgomery county which runs counter to what has been happening across the rest of the state. as we have been reporting on the show, what is happening in ohio this year has just been a mess. the county elections boards are equally divided, two republicans and two democrats in every county. the republicans on these local boards have been voting to expand early voting hours in republican leaning counties but they ve been voting against it in democratic counties. and that led to a situation where voters in traditionally republican counties like butler county, for example, they would have had the opportunity to vote on nights and weekends while voters in
give the weekends question another shot. so thomas richie and dennis lieberman voted on friday to go forward with weekend early voting there. and for those efforts, they were suspended from the elections board by the secretary of state for the crime of voting to offer the residents of their county more opportunity to vote. the republican secretary of state, john husted, has now threatened to remove them from office. think about this, though. he didn t just say no to the proposal for weekend voting. he didn t threaten to take away the jobs of the republicans who also participated in that vote and voted the other way. he didn t just fix his directive about early voting hours to close the loophole about weekends so it would also apply to weekends and be standardized across the state. instead, he just told the democrats and i m quoting here, you leave me no choice but to begin to process of removingia from the montgomery county board of elections. remove? they were hauled before a state he