(The Center Square) – A citizen-led constitutional amendment proposal could create automatic voter registration in Ohio and eliminate other voting restrictions.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose is calling the proposal extreme and radical. The plan’s organizers, Secure and Fair Elections, have called it a way to secure and expand voting rights.
Attorney General Dave Yost has until Thursday to approve or reject a summary of the proposal.
“I predicted months ago that radical interests are preparing to jam their extreme agendas into our state constitution because they can’t get them passed by the people’s representatives in the Statehouse,” LaRose said. “That effort is well underway. This is a political Trojan horse designed to make elections easier to steal, and they’re dishonestly doing it under the name of security and fairness. Pay attention, Ohioans.”
The amendment, which would need roughly 400,000 signatures if approved by Yost to appear on the ballot, would establish the right to vote as a fundamental right in the Ohio constitution. It would also bar the state from interfering with a legal Ohio voter to vote.
Also, it calls for automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration and an end to automatic roll purges that happen after four years of no voting.
It would also put more power in the hands of local boards of elections to create more than one ballot drop box and increase voter accessibility.
LaRose called the ideas an “assault” on the state’s voting process.
“The attorney general has just notified me of yet another proposal to amend Ohio’s constitution, this time rewriting the rules of our state and local elections,” LaRose said. “Let me be clear: there will be nothing secure and fair about the way we vote in this state if this amendment is passed. It’s a direct assault on the integrity of our voting process and the safeguards we’ve put in place to hold that process accountable.”
A similar proposal was presented in 2020 that never reached the ballot.
