A proposed constitutional amendment that would amend Ohio’s constitution by rewriting election rules was filed with Attorney General Dave Yost’s Office on Tuesday.
The proposed constitutional amendment would amend the Ohio Constitution by adding the following list of “rights” in regards to voting:
- Automatic voter registration;
- Unchecked same-day voter registration and voting;
- A signed declaration of identity to replace a voter’s photo identification;
- Multiple unregulated drop boxes and early voting locations throughout a county;
- An extended post-election ballot return period;
- Unregulated expansion of early voting hours by county;
- State-funded prepaid return postage for all absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots; and
- A ban on the removal of inactive voter registration records, as required under current state and federal law, resulting in these registrations remaining on the rolls despite the voter having moved or died.
This week’s proposed amendment is an updated version of a proposal recently rejected by Yost.
In a response letter to petitioners who submitted the first proposal, Yost explained that he was “unable to certify the summary as a fair and truthful statement of the proposed amendment.”
In the new proposal, the petitioners addressed Yost’s concerns laid out in his response letter, including a new title for the proposed amendment.
Originally titled “Secure and Fair Elections,” the updated initiative is now titled “Ohio Voters Bill of Rights” after Yost argued the original title did not “fairly or truthfully summarize or describe the actual content of the proposed amendment.”
“The proposed amendment is a compilation of specific election regulations. While the petitioners may believe that these proposed regulations may ultimately result in secure and fair elections, the title is completely untethered to the actual substance of the proposed amendment. Thus, the title is misleading and fails to fairly and truthfully describe the content of the proposed amendment,” Yost added at the time.
By January 25, Yost must determine whether the updated proposed amendment’s summary is “fair and truthful.”
In the case the summary is approved, the Ohio Ballot Board, chaired by Secretary of State Frank LaRose, will convene to “determine whether the proposed amendment consists of one or multiple issues.”
The original proposal was denounced by LaRose, who called it a “direct assault on the integrity of our voting process and the safeguards we’ve put in place to hold that process accountable,” as previously reported by The Ohio Star.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “People Voting” by Danny Howard. CC BY-SA 2.0.
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