The League of Women Voters of Ohio is a nonpartisan, grassroots
organization working to protect and expand voting rights and ensure everyone is represented in our democracy.
We empower voters and defend democracy through advocacy, education, and litigation, at the local, state, and national levels.
STATE LEGISLATION: Stop Ohio SB 153 and HB 233
What are Ohio SB153 and HB233?
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Ohio Senate Bill 153 and Ohio House Bill 233 are election bills now in Committee in the Ohio General Assembly. They are basically twins, but one was introduced in the Ohio Senate (SB153) and the other in the Ohio House (HB 233). Identical bills in different chambers are referred to as companion bills.
Why are Ohio SB153 and HB233 bad?
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SB153 and HB233 are a pair of radical, massive, complicated and unnecessary bills that would not only make it harder for Ohioans to cast a ballot, they would make it harder for statewide initiatives, local issues, and candidates at all levels to make it onto the ballot, and would add unacceptable burdens to local Boards of Elections without providing them with any additional resources to be successful.
Here's who these bills would hurt if they became law:
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Ohio citizens trying to make changes an out of touch Statehouse won’t
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Local businesses, governments, and citizen groups in Ohio trying to put issues onto their community ballots
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Grassroots and independent candidates in Ohio who want to run for office
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Ohio voters
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Ohio county Boards of Elections, election officials, and election workers
Here's how these bills would hurt if they became law:
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Makes the process of verifying citizenship (done now by local Board of Elections near perfect success) extremely difficult and labor intensive for both eligible voters and election workers, and could end up preventing tens of thousands of eligible Ohioan from casting a ballot. Especially vulnerable to having their voter eligibility denied would be married women, young Ohioans, elderly Ohioans, Ohioans who are active duty military or reservists, rural Ohioans, disabled Ohioans, and Ohioans in vulnerable communities across the state.
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Excessive and unnecessary ID requirements would likely create confusion in the voter registration process, resulting in application rejection and approval delays that could prevent tens of thousands eligible voters from participating in elections.
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Voters would face prosecution if they fail to respond to a mailed confirmation notice from the Board of Elections, within just 14 days, to a confirmation notice sent in the mail.
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Eligible voters whose personal information is mismatched – like a new address or missing middle initial – between the BOE and BMV would be forced to cast a provisional ballot, and would then would have just 4 days after an election to prove the information listed on their ID was accurate. That means tens of thousands of eligible voters would likely have their ballots thrown out for no good reason.
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Boards of Elections would be buried with unwarranted and excessive busywork that would take election officials and election workers away from their important work of supporting voters and keeping our elections secure. This bill is the definition of “unfunded mandate”: obligation without resources.
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Voter drop boxes would be banned, making voter access more difficult and adding another layer of work for election officials and election workers.
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The power of the vote and our citizen initiatives are the strongest tools Ohioans have to push back on government overreach, hold politicians accountable, and allow us to play a real role in shaping policy in our communities.
SB153 and HB 233 are attacks on our petition process, on voters, and on our elections– if passed into law, these bills would crush direct democracy in Ohio. We cannot allow that to happen to our state.
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Tell your Ohio representatives and members of Ohio's government committees in the Ohio Senate and Ohio House to OPPOSE SB153 & HB233 here.
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Resources to spread the word about these very bad bills:
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Messaging tool kit from Ohio Voting Rights Coalition here
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Our Fair Districts and We Are Ohio opposition letter, with sign-ons from more than 120 Ohio organizations here
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Letter to the Editor template to support Boards of Elections from Ohio Voting Rights Coalition here (meant to give our local election workers shout-outs but a good opportunity to note how impossible it would be for them to do their jobs if these bills became law)
FEDERAL LEGISLATION: Stop the SAVE Act
What is the SAVE Act?
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The SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) Act, aka HR 22, is a bill in the US Congress that would require every American to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections or change or update their voter registration, which would need to be presented in person.
Why is the SAVE Act bad?
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To start, these requirements are wholly unnecessary, as citizenship is already verified by election officials before voter granting eligibility, and voter fraud is exceedingly rare. But the real issue is that very few kinds of documentation meet the “documentary proof of citizenship” definition; the document needs to show citizenship on its face. In all but 5 states (Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington), REAL ID cards don’t do this, nor do most other forms of ID. For the majority of Americans, documentation would be limited to birth certificates, passports, and naturalization papers.
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If an eligible voter doesn’t have a passport and their name doesn’t match their birth certificate or naturalization papers, the law tells the states to figure out their own system for verifying citizenship. What that would actually look like is unknown, which is scary. A state could decide a marriage certificate showing the eligible voter’s name change in concert with their birth certificate wasn’t enough to prove citizenship– that kind of ambiguity makes room for policies that could make proving citizenship almost impossible for many. And it can take a long time to put new election laws into place at the state level, so what happens if there’s an election before a state passes new laws? Countless Ohioans could be denied their constitutional right to vote.
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If the SAVE Act becomes law, eligible voters can only register or re-register in person, and only election officials would be able to register or re-register them. This would ban eligible voters from registering or updating their voter registration by mail, through community registration drives, at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV), or anywhere else election officials were not. In addition to severely limiting Ohioans’ opportunities to vote, this would also place an extraordinary burden on our election system, which does not have the capacity to verify citizenship eligibility in person for thousands and thousands of Ohioans. If SAVE was passed into law today, the only place in Ohio where people could register or re-register would be county boards of elections, and Ohio has only one per county.
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Tell US Senators Moreno and Husted to OPPOSE the SAVE Act here.
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See more about the millions of Ohioans who would be impacted if the SAVE Act came into law here.
2024 ELECTION
IMPACT REPORT
1.8 million
8.1 million
280,000
connections made in our digital platforms
Ohio voters protected through litigation
Ohioans received voting info from VOTE411
people reached through our earned media
8.4 billion
civic education materials distributed
153,000
voters texted in support of redistricting reform