Update, Jan. 17, 2024: This proposed amendment is now called the Ohio Voters Bill of Rights.

Ohioans would have more time, locations and options to vote if the backers of a newly proposed amendment to the state constitution can get it on the ballot next year and voters approve it.

The Secure and Fair Elections (SAFE) act would prevent any person or level of government from “denying, abridging, interfering with, or unreasonably burdening the fundamental right to vote.” This means that state legislators could not dictate or change the conditions for early voting, for example, as they have in the recent past.

“This proposed amendment ensures that our elections are secure, fair, and accessible, regardless of where we live, where we work or what we look like,” said Petee Talley, president and convener of the Ohio Unity Coalition, in a statement. The OUC is part of a statewide coalition backing the amendment. Other members include the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, Ohio NAACP and the A. Philip Randolph Institute.

Major changes to voting access

If passed, the SAFE act would make some significant changes to voting in Ohio:

• Allow unregistered people to register and vote on the same day during the early-voting period or on election day. This would apply to updating an existing registration as well. (Current law sets a deadline for registration several weeks before each election.)

• Add school-issued photo identification cards to the list of acceptable documents for proving ID.

• Allow people who don’t have a photo ID to vote by signing a “declaration under penalty of perjury attesting to their identity.”

• Allow everyone to vote by mail for any reason, with return postage paid by the state. The amendment would also require the state to create a system for tracking mail-in ballot applications and ballots so that voters can be notified if they’ve made a mistake in time to correct it.

• Permanently establish the days and hours for early voting, but also allow counties to offer more hours and multiple locations and as many 24-hour secure drop boxes as they deem necessary.

The amendment would also remove a section added in 1851 that states: “No idiot, or insane persons, shall be entitled to the privileges of an elector.”

Long way to go

The full text of the proposed amendment can be read on the Ohio Attorney General’s website, where it was filed on Tuesday, the first step in a long process. Attorney General Dave Yost has until Dec. 28 to review the summary of the amendment and determine if it’s a “fair and truthful” explanation of the proposed changes to the state constitution. If so, he will forward it to the Ohio Ballot Board for further review.

If these hurdles are cleared, proponents of the amendment will have to gather thousands of signatures from registered voters in at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties to get it on the ballot in November. They’ll have until July 3 to accomplish that.

The proponent coalition statement did not mention moves in recent years by Republican state lawmakers to limit voting access, but the amendment seems designed to address that. Earlier this year, GOP legislators — who hold large majorities in both the state House and Senate — reduced early and absentee voting options and enacted new photo ID requirements that are among the most stringent in the country. In November, a Republican senator called for banning drop boxes.

“Protecting our freedom to vote in Ohio will ensure a safer and stronger future for everyday Ohioans,” said Michael Harrison, who is senior pastor of Union Baptist Church in Youngstown, president of the Ohio Baptist State Convention and board chair of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. “This amendment will make it easier for Black and brown voters to make our voices heard and fight for the changes that we want for our communities — not those imposed by politicians who don’t represent us.”