COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Ballot Board changed certain language on State Issue 1 after a ruling from Ohio’s Supreme Court.
The court ordered the board to fix language in the title and correct an error in the measure. The ballot question will allow Ohioans to decide whether to raise the threshold to 60% to pass constitutional amendments.
The Ballot Board changed the title of State Issue 1 during a meeting on Tuesday. They removed the word “any” after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled it incorrectly suggests that signature changes would apply to all amendments rather than only citizen-initiated ones.
The rewritten portion of the amendment says, “Require that any initiative petition filed after January 1, 2024 with the Secretary of State proposing to amend the Constitution of the State of Ohio be signed by at least 5% of the electors of each county based on the total vote in the county for governor in the last preceding election.”
“The Ohio Supreme Court ordered them to get it right,” said Dennis Willard a spokesperson with One Person, One Vote. “The language was wrong.”
The Ballot Board also rewrote certain language to clarify the number of signatures that are needed will be based on how many people vote in the previous gubernatorial election.
However, lawyers representing One Person, One Vote are unhappy with the part of the lawsuit that the Ohio Supreme Court rejected. Advocates asked court justices to force The Ballot Board to remove the word “elevating” from its language.
“So, the phrase ‘elevating’ to qualify for an initiated constitutional amendment is by itself, I think, confusing because it qualifies the question,” said Don McTigue, a lawyer from McTigue and Colombo LLC.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said the changes made to State Issue 1 regarding language is fair.
“I don’t think we want to overcomplicate the ballot language,” said LaRose. “I think we want to put in front of voters what they’re being asked to approve and that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
Ohio’s Supreme Court has not yet ruled on a separate lawsuit by One Person, One Vote, which claims lawmakers did not call for August’s special election in a legal manner.
