Opponents of a new law aimed at reforming Ohio’s voting rules marched Tuesday morning from a near-downtown church to the Lucas County early voting center to push for voting rights.

The march coincided with the opening day of early voting in Ohio. About 70 people joined the 20-minute walk from 3rd Baptist Church on Pinewood Street to the voting office at 1302 Washington St.

The Rev. Talmadge J. Thomas, pastor of City of Zion, Mount Zion Church, said the goal of the march was to “express the voice of workers and people who don’t want their privileges of early voting retracted and interrupted.”

The Nov. 8 election will feature several hot-button issues, including Issue 2, which would uphold or repeal a law curtailing public employee collective bargaining rights, and Issue 3, which would allow Ohio to opt out of the newly enacted national health care law.

Voters also will elect city council and township board of trustee members as well as vote on some levies.

Marchers were invited to sign a petition to put the question of repealing the voting reform bill, House Bill 194, on the ballot in November, 2012. The petition drive already has succeeded in temporarily halting the bill from being enacted until the referendum next year, but still has to prove it raised enough valid signatures.

Republicans who passed the bill said it was designed to make voting laws in the state uniform and to eliminate the possibility of fraud. Democrats say it was designed to suppress the votes of minorities and lower-income people, who typically vote Democratic.

HB194 shortens the time period for absentee and early voting, spells out when provisional ballots can be counted, and delays next year’s presidential primary from March to May, among 140 changes made to the existing election law.

Tuesday’s march was organized by the NAACP, the Urban League, Project Reconnect, and We Are Ohio.

First Published October 4, 2011, 6:02 p.m.