Protect Voting Accessibility and Fairness in Ohio

Join Us in Action: Protect Voting Accessibility and Fairness in Ohio!

Ohio Statehouse republicans are continuously attacking voting accessibility and fairness, join us in telling them that we will not accept this. HB 472 is another example of this. It would do many things that would make voting in Ohio even harder than it already is, including adding even stricter photo ID requirements.

HB 472 would:

• Mandate that voters must possess an Ohio photo ID card to register to vote or cast absentee ballots by mail.
• Require election officials to compare the voter’s photo ID with their appearance or with a photo on file, and challenge their right to vote if they don’t match.
• Introduce weekly voter purges.
• And add more restrictive measures…

On the photo ID front, the ACLU has found that voter Photo ID laws can be discriminatory and have negative effects:

• BIPOC and minority voters disproportionately lack photo ID.
• Voter ID laws are enforced in a discriminatory manner. A Caltech/MIT study found that BIPOC voters are more frequently questioned about ID than are white voters.
• Strict Photo ID laws reduce turnout among minority voters. Several studies have found that photo ID laws have a particularly depressive effect on turnout among racial minorities.
• The use of restrictive voting laws to disenfranchise minority voters can be traced back to the Jim Crow era.

Additionally, if elections officials are forced to challenge the right to vote of anyone whose appearance does not match their ID, the voting rights of many trans individuals would likely be at risk. Many trans people may appear differently from the sex marked on their IDs, and the visible transition that many trans people go through may not match up with ID photos taken at the BMV months or years before their outward transition. Measures that require such extreme scrutiny only threaten the rights of those whose lives and wellbeing are on the line.

On the voter purge front, Dēmos has found that Ohio has the worst voter removal practices of any state in the nation.

Restrictive voting measures have long been designed to maintain the power structures that benefit those in control and keep them in control, and that legacy continues to be felt today. Voter purges are discriminatory and error-prone, and disproportionately impact historically marginalized communities. Frank LaRose has already purged 709,000 Ohioans since taking office.

We cannot let this bill move forward. We believe in the power of the people. Join us in showing our legislators that power. HB 472 is currently in the House Homeland Security committee, take action with us to demand that members of this committee protect fair voting access by not allowing this bill to move any further.