Board of Elections Directors and staff grow increasingly frustrated while they await the final November ballot language. It surrounds Issue One — a proposal to add a reproductive rights amendment to Ohio's constitution.
The Ohio Ballot Board must meet and determine how to handle the ruling from the state Supreme Court regarding Issue One language, which will likely appear on the November ballot.
Tuesday, the state supreme court justices handed down the phrase “the state of Ohio” instead of “the citizens of the state of Ohio," which they say could be misleading.
Meanwhile, the court did not grant the request by Issue One supporters to change “unborn child” to “fetus." It also declined to mandate the inclusion of a guarantee of access to contraception, fertility treatment and miscarriage care in the amendment.
Jeff Rezabek, director of the Montgomery County Board of Election, stated that the political fights and lawsuits surrounding this measure are eating away precious time his staff needs to meet an Ohio election deadline, September 22.
“Once we have our ballot finalized there’s a 24-hr-period in which people can review it to make sure we’ve done everything correct," Rezabek said. "We ship it to the party chairs, we do a whole bunch of things and clearly we won’t be able to accomplish that in this short period of time.”
Friday, September 22, all county Board of Elections must send out UOCAVA ballots. These ballots are connected to the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act and are sent to overseas active duty military and to U.S. citizens working abroad.
