Backers of voting rights amendment can collect signatures after ballot board advances proposal

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio Ballot Board on Monday advanced a proposed constitutional amendment that would prohibit Ohio voter laws that critics say are onerous.

The Republican-dominated board, led by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, unanimously agreed that the proposed amendment contained just a single issue and not multiple, which would have presented hurdles to backers.

The board’s vote doesn’t necessarily mean members agree with the so-called Ohio Voters Bill of Rights. In fact, LaRose, when trying to determine whether the proposal should be one issue, asked questions that illuminated his potential areas of opposition.

But with the Ballot Board approval, backers can disperse across the state with clipboards. They must get roughly 413,000 signatures from registered Ohio voters – the next step to getting on the ballot.

The coalition of voting and civil rights organizations backing the amendment hasn’t yet decided which election they’d like the proposed amendment to be placed before voters.

“We’re exploring all of our next options,” said Bria Bennett, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, an advocacy organization behind the effort. “We are very focused and committed to making sure voting rights are enshrined in our state constitution.”

The amendment would declare voting is a “fundamental right,” triggering heightened judicial scrutiny of laws that infringe on it. It would enshrine voting hours, early voting, automatic voter registration via the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, online voter registration, same-day voter registration, loosening identification requirements to vote, and similar policy items.

Monday’s Ballot Board meeting and vote – the meeting lasted less than 20 minutes – was relatively smooth for the amendment’s supporters.

It’s also a stark contrast to their experience with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican who has said he’s exploring running for governor in 2026. Yost in January refused to advance the amendment to the Ballot Board, saying the title “Ohio Voters Bill of Rights” was misleading.

The Ohio Supreme Court on Oct. 30 unanimously ruled that the title was out of Yost’s purview, and he had unreasonably and unlawfully blocked the proposal from moving forward.

During the Ballot Board meeting, Jyoti Jasrasaria, a lawyer for the Elias Law Group in Washington, which is working with the backers, said the Ohio Supreme Court had previously decided a similar proposed amendment was one issue in a 6-1 ruling. LaRose at the time had split it into four parts.

When the board splits proposals into multiple amendments, it makes it much harder for supporters to succeed in the expensive process of collecting enough signatures. That’s because they must collect the 413,000 valid signatures for each individual amendment.

“Three of the justices decided on the basis that all of the provisions related in some fashion to voting and that applies equally here,” she said. “And the other three justices, including now Chief Justice Kennedy, decided on the basis that citizen-initiated amendments should not be subject to a single purpose requirement at all. And so this board’s duty with respect to this proposed amendment is clear: The board must certify the Ohio Voters Bill of Rights as a single amendment.”

LaRose said a section of the proposed amendment “seems to effectively undercut our ability to enforce the photo ID requirement. As you know, Ohio has put in place a photo ID requirement. It has been tested and upheld by the courts. But essentially what this says is that you can verify your identity using a photo ID, unless you choose not to, in which case you can just kind of give us your word and we’re going to take it and accept it that you say who you are.”

Ohio’s new, stricter voter ID law has increasingly tripped up voters.

Jasrasaria said the Ballot Board’s duty was simply to certify the proposed amendment as a single issue.

“But, yes, the proposed amendment would set forth options for voters who do not have (photo) IDs to present identification by other means and to affirm their identification,” she said. “And of course, it maintains significant penalties for any kind of voter fraud of anything of that nature.”

LaRose also said that the portion of the proposed amendment allowing people to register to vote on the same day they cast their ballot could pose difficulties for election officials, who run names through databases to ensure the electors are citizens and live in Ohio.

Jasrasaria replied that other states have same-day voter registration and it works fine.

LaRose wanted to know whether the proposed amendment would allow the process that critics call a “voter purge. When an Ohio resident doesn’t vote after a period of time and doesn’t respond to state attempts to reach out to them, their name gets thrown off roles and they must register again if they want to vote. The process has been upheld by the Supreme Court, LaRose said. Supporters of the process believe it is necessary to keep voter rolls updated and current

Jasrasaria said that the amendment doesn’t specifically speak to that issue.

“I certainly think that the intention of this amendment is to make sure that voting is both fair and secure,” she said.

Laura Hancock covers state government and politics for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com.