COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – An August ballot measure making it harder to amend the state constitution is unlikely to mislead voters as written, but its authors must make some edits, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled on Monday.

In a 4-3 ruling, the Court partially accepted the advocacy group One Person One Vote’s request that the Ohio Ballot Board – a five-member team responsible for approving the ballot initiative’s language – return to the drawing board to clear up slight inaccuracies in its description of Issue 1 that will appear on the Aug. 8 ballot.

But the Court rejected the group’s claims that the measure, which would require 60% of voter support to enact a constitutional amendment, will mislead voters at the ballot box because it fails to mention how it marks a change from the current standard of 50% plus one vote.

“We have never held that ballot language must inform voters about current law,” the Court wrote in its per curiam opinion.

The Court agreed, however, with One Person One Vote’s request that the Ballot Board tweak language concerning the number of signatures required to place something on the ballot – an error the Ballot Board acknowledged but did not feel warranted a revision.

Dennis Willard, a spokesperson for One Person One Vote, is generally satisfied with the ruling, saying the Court “saw through the deception” politicians and special interests wanted on the ballots.

“It shows that the Ohio Ballot Board, Frank LaRose the secretary of state, and the people who followed him on the ballot board were deceptive and misleading to voters and that’s what we stated in our case,” Willard said.

In its current form, the measure states that any petition to amend the Ohio Constitution, in order to make it on the ballot, must be signed by at least 5% of eligible voters in each of the state’s 88 counties. That is inaccurate, the Court ruled, as the number of signatures required is determined based on turnout in the previous gubernatorial election.

“Because not all electors vote in a gubernatorial election, the ballot language here overstates the number of signatures that would be needed to qualify an initiative petition for the ballot,” the Court wrote.

Rob Nichols, a spokesperson for the LaRose office, said the secretary of state is concerned about what the changes would lead to for voters.

“Our goal in approving the ballot language for Issue 1 was to make it as clear and concise as possible,” Nichols said in an official statement from LaRose’s office. “The court has ordered us to put a more complex explanation on the ballot, which we know can often lead to voter confusion, but we’ll follow the court’s directive.”

One Person One Vote also took issue with the amendment’s title, “Elevating the Standards to Qualify for and to Pass Any Constitutional Amendment.” LaRose’s choice of the word “elevating,” it argued, is biased by implying that current standards to change the state constitution are too low.

The Court rejected that argument, writing that the word “elevating” holds essentially the same meaning as “raising,” which is what the measure seeks to do.

It did, however, order the Ballot Board to strip the word “any” from the measure’s title. The proposed initiative would impose the 60% requirement for initiated petitions but not for lawmaker-proposed constitutional amendments or those proposed at a constitutional convention.

Ohio Right to Life President Mike Gonidakis said Monday’s ruling won’t send the message to Ohioans that the Ballot Board made the wrong decision the first time.

“The court rejected every single claim of deception, misrepresentation and what they said is ‘Hey ballot board, you need to do some administrative cleanup,’ Gonidakis said. “But all the other claims that were made by our opponents, and there were a lot of them, the court struck down and being null and void, so I am not worried about confusion or any questions.”

After the ruling, the Ballot Board announced that it will meet Tuesday afternoon.

Willard hopes the meeting will result in more straightforward language.

“The voters should be able to go into the voting booth and read this language and understand what is at stake,” he said. “Really what’s at stake is majority rule as we know it. It’s threatened and the sacred principle of one person, one vote is threatened.”

The Court has yet to rule on a separate case involving a challenge to the constitutionality of Issue 1.