Ohio Voter Rights Coalition

Campaigns

• Pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015

  This week marks the two-year anniversary of Shelby v. Holder, the Supreme Court decision which gutted core components of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. The Shelby case is devastating because for the last half century, the VRA has protected the right to vote for millions of Americans. Unless Congress updates the Voting Rights Act, the federal government will be powerless to stop racially discriminatory election procedures from going into effect. Congress has been unwilling to restore the critical protections of the VRA for two years -- however the need for voting rights protections has skyrocketed. In 2014, 21 states had new voting restrictions in place, followed by 17 states introducing 40 new voting restrictions in 2015. The 2016 election will be the first in 50 years where voters will not have the full protections of the VRA, which makes fixing the Voting Rights Act an urgent priority. The Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015 (VRAA), a bill just introduced in Congress by Sen. Patrick Leahy and Rep. John Lewis, will restore key voting rights protections. Most importantly, the VRAA will modernize the preclearance found in the original Voting Rights Act of 1965 and protect against voting changes that may be harmful or discriminatory. Republican and Democratic administrations and Congresses alike have reauthorized the Voting Rights Act in full for decades, and there is no reason why we cannot all work together to restore the Voting Rights Act today.

  1,384 of 2,000 Signatures

  Created by Ohio Voter Rights Coalition
• Governor Kasich: Please Veto the provision in House Bill 53 limiting the voting rights of colleg...

  Current law permits citizens to register to vote in Ohio while retaining an out-of-state driver’s license, however H.B. 53 would require any person that registers to vote in Ohio to pay upwards of $75 to register their vehicle in this state. By forcing out-of-state students to purchase an Ohio driver’s license and vehicle registration, students will effectively have to pay to vote. Over 116,000 out-of-state students attend Ohio colleges and universities and would be negatively impacted by this bill. Legislators should not impose administrative expenses on students to deter voting. Not only is this provision and poor public policy, this provision is also likely to be unconstitutional.

  2,378 of 3,000 Signatures

  Created by Ohio Voter Rights Coalition
• Tell Ohio's Speaker of the House to Protect Absentee Voting

  During an all-important presidential election year when turnout is at its heaviest, it is absolutely critical that all Ohio voters receive an absentee ballot application. In 2012, the first time that all voters received an absentee ballot application, approximately one-third of all statewide votes cast their ballots prior to Election Day, primarily by mail. Failure to provide for the money for this mailing is particularly troubling because the legislature prohibited the Secretary of State and local boards of elections from sending out unsolicited absentee applications with passage of SB 205 in 2014. The legislature designated itself as the sole gatekeeper for deciding whether all voters will receive absentee ballots applications in any given year.

  819 of 1,000 Signatures

  Created by Ohio Voter Rights Coalition