THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

And that is what the Teabagger Secretary of State John Husted is doing in Ohio to pesky ballot initiatives that would annoy his reactionary backers and perhaps break his rice bowl as he looks forward to running for governor.

This September, county-level "community bills of rights" in Medina, Portage, Athens and Meigs were removed from these Ohio counties' respective ballots, despite all four gathering enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. The bills of rights would have banned fracking-related projects, established enforceable rights for ecosystems and carved out powers for localities to improve state protections for health, safety and welfare. Some, like Medina's, would have halted construction on the fiercely contested NEXUS fracked-gas pipeline.

But as a result of the removal of these measures from local ballots, no votes will be cast. They were removed by county boards of elections working closely with the Secretary of State to apply stringent pre-election requirements.

It is a virtual repeat of 2015, when the Ohio Supreme Court sided with Secretary of State and gubernatorial hopeful Jon Husted in a decision that effectively pulled four county-wide initiatives -- in Medina, Fulton, Meigs and Athens counties -- from their ballots, ahead of the November 2015 elections.

The 2015 court battle came after Husted claimed "unfettered authority" to determine the legality of local initiatives before they go to a vote. It was a baseless legal argument that flew in the face of established legal precedent that defines a secretary of state's role in the ballot process as procedural, and which protects petitions from legal or constitutional challenges before citizens get a chance to vote. The court struck down Husted's proclamation but sided with him on a technicality -- and the initiatives were removed.

Decisions, such as this, which sidestep the democratic process, maintain predictable "investment climates" for the oil and gas industry, and perpetuate the illusion of consensus and the notion that somehow issues regarding the oil and gas industry are democracy-immune. The industry -- wary of a domino effect -- does not want the thought that oil and gas extraction can be governed by citizen-crafted law to spread, for fear that if it does, it will do so rapidly. The very concept of putting fracking to a vote is dangerous to the oil and gas companies' agenda. It is why they worked so hard to squelch attempts at 2016 statewide anti-fracking ballot measures in Colorado and Michigan.

This is not the first fracking-related standoff in recent Ohio history. Since 2012, Ohioans working with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund have passed community bills of rights in Yellow Springs, Broadview Heights, Oberlin and Athens, and proposed over a dozen more that either failed at the ballot or were removed from the ballot before votes could take place.

Heading into 2016, activists, seemingly undeterred by the 2015 setback, crafted new initiatives with painstaking attention to detail on the "form of government" requirement. Some went so far as to explain how county coroners would be compensated under the new charters.

But their efforts were not enough to satisfy Husted or the local county boards of elections. Ultimately, all four county measures were removed from the ballot for not delineating every single specific responsibility of all county officials.

Husted appoints all the county boards of elections. In one county, he tapped Ohio Gas Association President Jimmy Stewart. And this spring, Husted organized a fundraiser with the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. Husted has also earned infamy for his attacks on early voting and trimming of the state's voter registration rolls.

Beyond depriving voters of access to their democratic process, Husted's activities also highlight the necessity of paying attention to down ballot elections especially those in off years. It is unlikely that anything will be done before the removal of people like Husted and Gov. Kasich.