Watch above for an earlier report on the Ballot Board’s initial certification of Issue 1
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio Republicans recertified the language of an August ballot measure on Tuesday to comply with edits handed down by the state’s highest court.
In a 3-2 vote split down party lines, the Ohio Ballot Board approved slight tweaks to the description of Issue 1, which – if approved by voters in the Aug. 8 special election – would require 60% of voter support to amend the constitution instead of 50% plus one vote. Secretary of State Frank LaRose, an Issue 1 proponent who chairs the Ballot Board, said the changes are “fully compliant” with the Ohio Supreme Court’s orders.
“There’s really no mechanism to ask the court to bless the proposed language, but we went very clearly through their decision,” LaRose said. “We believe we’ve adequately responded.”
The Democrats on the board, state Rep. Elliott Forhan (D-Euclid) and state Sen. Bill DeMora (D-Columbus), voted against the edited version’s adoption because it didn’t go far enough to explain the measure to Ohioans, they argued.
As urged by other Issue 1 opponents, Forhan made an unsuccessful motion to include a sentence in Issue 1’s description to outline how the proposed 60% requirement reflects a change from current law – a request the Supreme Court deemed unnecessary on Monday.
“Without this critical context, a voter cannot make an informed decision,” said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio.
Approved changes to Issue 1 include clarifying its provision about the number of signatures needed to place an initiated petition on the ballot. Its initial version falsely stated a petition must be signed by at least 5% of voters in each of Ohio’s 88 counties, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday.
To remedy the error, the Ballot Board rephrased the provision. A petition must be signed by at least 5% of voters who participated in the last gubernatorial election to make it on the ballot, the board clarified.
Per the court’s instructions, the Ballot board also stripped the word “any” from the measure’s initial title, “Elevating the Standards to Qualify for and to Pass Any Constitutional Amendment,” and replaced it with “an.”
The title change was necessary, the Supreme Court ruled, because the measure imposes the 60% requirement only for citizen-led petitions – not for lawmaker-proposed constitutional amendments or those introduced at a constitutional convention.
Don McTigue, a Columbus attorney representing the anti-Issue 1 campaign One Person One Vote, asked the Ballot Board on Tuesday to adopt additional changes to avoid misleading voters, particularly as it concerned the measure’s rewritten title, but his concerns largely fell on deaf ears.
For instance, McTigue pointed to the word “pass” in Issue 1’s title. “Pass by whom?” he asked. “It should not be presumed that voters necessarily know that only voters pass constitutional amendments.”
But LaRose rejected requests from the Ballot Board’s Democratic members that Issue 1’s title be tweaked, citing his office’s sole authority to determine the title of a proposed constitutional amendment.
“We want to get things underway,” LaRose said of the upcoming Aug. 8 election. “Our boards of elections need to start sending out ballots to our overseas and military personnel in a couple weeks.”
A separate lawsuit filed by Issue 1 opponents last month alleges that lawmakers unlawfully greenlighted the August election just months after voting to nix most of the late-summer voting due to low voter turnout, a $20 million price tag and strain on election workers.
The Ohio Supreme Court has yet to make a decision in that case.
The new iteration of Issue 1 as it will appear on the August ballot reads as follows:
