Editor’s note: The Ohio Ballot Board voted on Wednesday to split this petition into two separate parts, doubling the number of signatures needed. Read that story here.
An initiative to give Ohioans the opportunity to vote on equal rights has moved forward.
On July 3, the Ohio Attorney General’s office certified that the Ohio Equal Rights Amendment had received the 1,000 valid signatures required to advance in the process to appearing on a future ballot.
If successfully placed on the ballot and approved by voters, the amendment would prohibit the Ohio legislature and local municipalities from enacting or enforcing laws or policies that would discriminate against Ohioans on the basis of race, color, creed or religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression regardless of sex assigned at birth, pregnancy status, genetic information, disease status, age, disability, recovery status, familial status, ancestry, national origin, or military and veteran status.
These protections would apply across all areas of public life, including education, employment, housing, healthcare services, public accommodations, state records and legal identification.
Additionally, the amendment would repeal the current language in Ohio’s Constitution that defines marriage as “only a union between one man and one woman.”
“We need this amendment so that we do not have more of our rights stripped away,” said Lis Regula, a member of the Ohio Equal Rights (OER) petition committee. “We have seen an increasing number of attacks from the legislature on marginalized groups in the past few years and this would provide paths for recourse and justice.”
The attorney general’s office now sends the amendment language to the Ohio Ballot Board to “determine whether the proposal contains a single constitutional amendment or multiple constitutional amendments.”
“This certification should not be construed as an affirmation of the enforceability, constitutionality, or wisdom of the proposed amendment,” Attorney General Dave Yost said in a statement. “Those matters are left for a different forum and another day.”
If the language clears the Ohio Ballot Board, the campaign must collect at least 442,958 valid signatures from registered Ohio voters across at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties in order to be placed on the ballot.
The ballot in which year? To be determined.
Grassroots approach
The organizers behind OER describe themselves as proudly “grassroots.”
“We are a citizen-led ballot initiative,” Regula said. “We started hashing out language last year, getting feedback, doing some fundraising and organizing everything we needed to do get set up as a nonprofit.”
Organizers say they know the enormity of gathering over 400,000 signatures from half of Ohio’s counties and have learned a great deal from similar initiatives.
An attempt to place an item on November’s ballot to overturn SB 1 – Ohio’s controversial higher education bill – failed last week to qualify as organizers had not gained enough signatures. Despite the outcome, OER organizers praised the campaign.
“That was a tremendous effort and it really speaks to how Ohioans have gotten more interested in protecting what they can and being more involved in government,” Regula said.
The failure of the SB 1 ballot initiative also served as an important reminder about timing: that attempt was to place an item on the November 2025 ballot. OER organizers are in no such rush.
“We are definitely giving ourselves more time,” Regula said.
Although organizers said they could not find language in a statute on when collected signatures would expire, they want to be careful not to wait too long. Too much of a delay between securing and submitting signatures increases the risk that Ohioans who have signed the OER petition might have moved, which would disqualify their signature.
“Additionally, Ohio has seen aggressive efforts to remove voters,” Regula said of recent actions by Ohio’s Secretary of State to purge voter rolls.
Though it is not set in stone, a November 2026 goal to place the OER amendment on the ballot is certainly a possibility.
“Obviously a midterm election year will tend to have a higher turnout,” Regula said. “Plus, statistically, those elections tend to favor more progressive ideas and candidates.”
According to Sen. Bill DeMora’s office, the Ohio Ballot Board – of which DeMora is a member – will meet on Wednesday to review the amendment. 🔥
IGNITE ACTION
- To learn more about the Ohio Equal Rights Amendment, you can visit their organization here.
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