Matthew Richmond

Updated: 4:50 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020 The process of vaccinating health care workers and people living in nursing homes is going too slowly, according to Gov. Mike DeWine.

Ohio’s prison authority is vaccinating inmates and staff against the coronavirus at three detention facilities starting this week, but vaccines are limited to inmates under medical care. According to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, vaccinations will be available to 593 inmates and 456 staff members. The shipments began arriving Monday.

With about 300 COVID-positive inmates and 69 staff members currently out with COVID-19 illness or exposure, Cuyahoga County is taking several dramatic steps to stem an outbreak of the coronavirus in the jail. The Ohio National Guard has been called on to fill in for sick staff, inmates meeting certain criteria have been released, and the state’s restrictions on inmate transfers have been challenged in court.

Cuyahoga County is accepting Oho Gov. Mike DeWine’s offer of National Guard troops to provide security support at county jails. DeWine made the offer in response to “the significant number of COVID-19 infections amongst state, county, and local corrections officers that has reduced staffing levels required to maintain safe and adequate security at some facilities,” according to a press release.

The City of Cleveland has agreed to pay $4.85 million to David Ayers, 20 years after he was wrongfully convicted of murder. The city tucked the settlement announcement into its daily coronavirus press release Monday night. The judgement appears to bring to a close a decades-long saga for Ayers.

A new bill in the Ohio House would offer $20 million in federal coronavirus stimulus funding to independent music venues.The bill’s co-author, state Rep.…

While votes are still being counted, Tuesday’s election process was mostly a smooth one, according to Ohio voting rights groups. A few problems were reported to the groups’ voter assistance hotlines – things like delays at polling places, the sometimes poorly executed expansion of curbside voting and scattered incidents of voter intimidation. But mostly the huge statewide turnout and early voting numbers that dwarfed any previous years were seen as a success.

Updated: 5:45 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020 Two out-of-state far-right activists have been charged with intimidating voters in Cuyahoga County. According to the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office, the scheme was allegedly hatched by Jacob Wohl, 22, and Jack Burkman, 54, to deter people from voting by mail. The pair is accused of sending more than 8,100 robocalls on Aug. 26 to phone numbers in Cleveland and East Cleveland.

In preparation for next month’s election, ideastream is answering your questions about voting. A listener in Yellow Springs asked how election officials can spot double voting and what the penalties are for trying to vote twice. Poll workers have electronic poll books that list who’s voted and who’s applied for an absentee ballot.

In the lead up to next month’s election, ideastream is answering your questions about voting. Lacey from Columbus asked what happens if your ballot seems to have been lost in the mail. According to Portage County Board of Elections Deputy Director Terry Nielsen, if a voter calls into the board to report a missing ballot, the board can mark an already mailed absentee ballot as void and send a new one.