Ohio’s highway funding bill could also end up creating a new bureaucratic pothole for new voters to navigate, under changes added this week by state lawmakers.

Ohio House Bill 54, better known as the transportation budget bill, would spend $11.5 billion over two years on the state’s transportation system. Most of the budget goes toward building and maintaining highways and other state routes, while some goes to local governments to pay for roads and bridges. 

But the bill also has new language that would require people to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. The 1993 federal Motor Voter Act requires BMVs to offer drivers that opportunity. But only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote, under state and federal law.

State Rep. Brian Stewart, a Pickaway County Republican who chairs the House Finance Committee that’s reviewing the transportation budget bill, called the change a “common-sense step in the process that protects the voter rolls and the potential applicant alike.” 

He points to news articles about recent voter-fraud cases in which non-citizens had registered at the BMV. Elections officials and voting-rights advocates have long described this as one scenario in which someone might illegally register, especially if a language barrier is an issue, although state law already requires people to provide proof of their legal residency to get a driver’s license.

“If BMV asks someone if they want to register, the person may assume they’re eligible to register when they’re actually not,” Stewart said in a text message.

Documented voter fraud in Ohio is exceedingly rare. Last year, 621 possible fraud cases referred by Secretary of State Frank LaRose dating back a decade led to nine prosecutions, according to the Associated Press. Republicans still for years have made cracking down on voter fraud, particularly by non-citizens, a key legislative focus.

The transportation bill is due at the end of March, and must make it through the Republican-controlled state Senate first before heading to Republican Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature. DeWine has expressed skepticism about the need for any new voting restrictions. Signal Statewide has asked a spokesman for the governor’s office for a comment on the voter language in the transportation bill. 

Senate President Rob McColley, a Northwest Ohio Republican, told reporters Wednesday he’s supportive of the policy idea. But he was noncommittal about whether it should remain in the transportation budget or get passed through a separate process.

“I think it is necessary. I think even one case of voter fraud is too many,” McColley said.

Voting-rights advocates meanwhile have raised concerns about the change, one of a few election-law changes tucked into the bill. 

“None of these amendments should be included in the transportation budget,” said Jen Miller, president of the Ohio League of Women Voters. “They have nothing to do with transportation.” 

Bill could raise constitutional issues 

The change could violate federal law, depending on how it’s written. Federal courts have found similar laws, including in a 2006 case in Ohio that required voters to prove their citizenship if someone challenged their eligibility, have illegally burdened voters or constituted an illegal “poll tax” by requiring them to pay to obtain official documents proving their citizenship. The Legislative Service Commission, the state legislature’s nonpartisan arm, cited these issues when analyzing a similar proposal last year. The Brennan Center for Justice, a left-leaning elections advocacy group, estimates as many as 9% of voting-age Americans don’t have easy access to documents proving their citizenship.

The U.S. Supreme Court in September partially upheld a similar Arizona law, saying state officials could enforce it on state voter-registration forms. However, the court said Arizona voters still could use federal forms to register without providing documents proving their citizenship. These voters are only allowed to vote in federal elections, not state ones.

Stewart said lawmakers will consider the U.S. Supreme Court decision when fine-turning the law. 

“The goal would be to require proof of citizenship to whatever extent we can,” he said.

The proposed law change concerns state elections officials, although they’ve not yet taken a position on the bill, said Aaron Ockerman, who leads a trade group that represents them. He pointed to the past LSC analysis.

“We’re talking about ways in which we can achieve the policy goals in the ways legislators intend but doing so in a way that’s respectful of federal law and voters,” said Ockerman, the director of the Ohio Election Officials Association.

Other voting changes included in bill, although one could be scrapped

The transportation bill also contains a new provision requiring the BMV to provide monthly reports to the Secretary of State’s Office that could be used to detect ineligible voters, such those who apply for a driver’s license in another state.

The SOS office currently performs those kinds of checks annually.

Ben Kindel, a LaRose spokesperson, said the office wasn’t consulted before the changes were added, and is better trying to understand them before taking a position. 

House Republicans this week added another change that would create a process to cancel voter registrations for people who surrender their license or whose driver’s license have been expired for more than six months. 

The change could have raised questions about whether someone could lose the right to vote by having their license revoked for a relatively minor crime, and concerned elections officials, Ockerman said, who were working to better understand the specifics of the proposal on Thursday.

But Stewart, the House Finance Committee chairman, said Thursday lawmakers are going to take the provision back out of the bill. He said backers’ rationale was that people need an ID to vote (although current law allows people to vote by mail without one.) 

“We’ve dug a little deeper and determined that since you don’t need photo ID to register to vote (as opposed to actually voting), we aren’t going to tie the two,” Stewart said.