Ohio Lawmakers Introduce Legislation to Stop Meddling in Party Primaries

Two Republican Ohio lawmakers have introduced a bill into the Ohio House of Representatives to reinforce election integrity and stop meddling in party primaries.

House Bill (HB) 210, sponsored by State Representatives Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester) and Gary Click (R-Vickery), aims to require electors who want to change political parties to register as a member of that political party by December 31st.

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Ohio Supreme Court Rules State Issue 1 Ballot Language Must be Rewritten

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the Ohio Ballot Board must rewrite some of the language that will appear as State Issue 1 before voters on the August special election ballot.

In the decision issued by Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy and Justices Pat Fischer, Pat DeWine, and Joe Deters the Ohio Ballot Board (OBB) is to address issues in the ballot text, including one that they said misrepresented the new threshold of voter signatures that amendment campaigns must amass from each Ohio county to be eligible for the ballot.

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Ohio Attorney General Yost Defends August Special Election in New Response to Lawsuit

State officials expanded their legal defense on Monday in a new filing against a lawsuit that challenges the Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment, Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 2, and an August special election to vote on.

The lawsuit filed by a Democratic-backed group, One Person One Vote, asserts that an August special election is illegal since statewide special elections were banned by the Ohio General Assembly in December due to their high costs and poor voter turnout.

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Secretary of State LaRose Requests Ohio Supreme Court Throw Out One Person One Vote Lawsuit

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, through the Attorney General’s office, has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to throw out a lawsuit challenging the Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment, Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 2, and an August special election to vote on it.

A Democratic-backed group One Person One Vote, and a coalition of three Ohio residents Jeniece Brock, Brent Edwards, and Christopher Tavenor, filed the lawsuit with the Ohio Supreme Court in response to the passage of a resolution, the Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment, aimed at altering the process of how initiative petitions can propose constitutional amendments on May 10th on the grounds that the resolution is unconstitutional and illegal.

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Ohio Republican Lawmaker Introduces State Budget Amendment to Retain March Primary for the 2024 Election

As a bipartisan group of Ohio lawmakers push to move Ohio’s presidential primary elections from March to May, a Republican state Representative has introduced an amendment to the state budget to retain Ohio’s March primary for the 2024 election.

Every four years, during the presidential election season, Ohio’s holds their primary election in March. The state generally holds other statewide primaries in May but in 1996, the Ohio Legislature changed the presidential primary to March.

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Ohio Latest Republican State to Drop out of Voter Registration Initiative

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has announced that Ohio is the latest Republican-led state to pull out of a national bipartisan voter registration initiative.

LaRose, a Republican who is actively considering running for U.S. Senate against U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in 2024, sent a letter to the executive director of the Electronic Registration Information Center, also known as ERIC, announcing the decision following the bipartisan compact’s member states meeting on Friday.

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Secretary of State LaRose Says Ohio May Drop Out of Voter Registration Initiative

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has alerted the chairman and board of a national bipartisan voter registration initiative that the state may withdraw, as three Republican-led states announced Monday.

Florida, Missouri, and West Virginia announced on Monday that they will no longer participate in the multi-state Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which election officials created to enable states to share voter registration information.

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Democrats Request Independent Audit of Ohio Voter Database ‘Purges’

Ohio House Democrats are requesting an independent audit of the recent update to the state’s voter registration database, which they claim initially disqualified 16,000 individuals from casting ballots.

State Representatives Juanita Brent (D-Cleveland) and Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Westlake) criticized the state’s voter “purges” in a letter to Secretary of State Frank LaRose and demanded transparency.

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Bipartisan Bill Aims to Move Ohio’s Presidential Primary from March to May

A bipartisan group of Ohio lawmakers want to keep the state’s primary elections at the same time every year, whether it’s a presidential election year or not. Under the introduced legislation, all primaries would take place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in May.

The bill has the backing of nine cosponsors from both sides of the aisle in the Ohio House.

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