Backers of a proposed Ohio Constitutional amendment to permanently expand state voting laws are free to begin collecting the hundreds of thousands of voter signatures they would need to get their proposal on the ballot.
That’s after a Monday vote from the Ohio Ballot Board, a five-member panel controlled by Republicans.
Whether the backers of the Ohio Voter Bill of Rights will immediately begin doing so is a different question, however. A spokesperson for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a left-leaning group backing the measure, told reporters Monday said the group and its allies have not yet decided what year they’re going to try to make the ballot.
Campaign will need to collect 443,000 valid voter signatures
The Ballot Board met on Monday to consider whether the Ohio Voter Bill of Rights can appear on the ballot as a single issue. The review is the final step before a citizen’s group is allowed to begin collecting the 442,958 signatures it must get from voters around the state to get an amendment proposal on the ballot.
The panel opted against splitting the measure into multiple amendments though, which would have made it much harder for the amendment campaign to do its work. The development could foreshadow a relatively easier path for future amendments, a potential political battleground in Ohio in the coming years as left-leaning groups look for ways to make a difference in what’s become an increasingly solidly Republican state.
The Ballot Board had the alternative of reasoning the amendment actually dealt with multiple subjects. If they had, the campaign backing the amendment would have had a much more difficult road, since it would have had to collect the nearly 443,000 signatures for each one, and then get voters to approve them individually.
Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose didn’t take questions from reporters after the vote, and didn’t explain his rationale during the meeting. But Republicans on the Ohio Supreme Court recently have ruled that state officials lack legal authority to ever split an amendment into multiple pieces, finding the single-subject rule only applies to constitutional amendments proposed by state lawmakers.
Ohio Voter Bill of Rights was held up Ohio attorney general
Backers of the Ohio Voter Bill of Rights had planned to get their amendment on the ballot in the Nov. 5 election this year. But the proposal was held up in legal limbo all year after state Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, refused to approve language that would have appeared on the petitions the group has to circulate.
Yost took issue with the measure’s title, saying it wasn’t accurate. Yost’s stance was a break with past precedent. For instance, Gov. Mike DeWine certified a nearly identical title for a similar proposal a decade ago.
But the Ohio Supreme Court, where Republicans hold a 4-3 majority, unanimously ruled late last month that Yost can’t reject a proposed ballot measure solely over its title. Yost is otherwise supposed to review the petition language, which summarizes a proposed amendments’ effects for a voter considering whether to sign it, to determine whether or not it accurately reflects what the proposal would do.
What would the Ohio Voter Bill of Rights do?
The Ohio Voter Bill of Rights would expand state voting laws in a variety of ways, including automatically registering all Ohioans to vote unless they opt out, allowing voters to register to vote and cast an early ballot on the same day and overturning a state law requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID to vote in person.
The amendment is backed by the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, which also was a key backer of a different amendment that fizzled this year: an amendment that would set the state’s minimum wage at $15 an hour.
Bria Bennett, a spokesperson for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, said she didn’t have an update on the timeline for either proposal on Monday.
The deadline to submit the hundreds of thousands of voter signatures to make the November 2025 ballot falls in July. Typically, that translates to a potential amendment campaign having to begin collecting signatures in January or February.
“Our priority is to make sure that all eligible Ohioans have the right to vote, have the right to accessible voting. And so we’re going to explore all our options on what that looks like moving forward,” Bennett said.
