To the Editor:
After passing a law eliminating August special elections due to high expenses and low voter turnout, the Ohio General Assembly reversed course and is holding an election Aug. 8 for only one issue.
They are asking us to pass a new amendment to the Ohio Constitution (which ironically needs only a simple majority to pass) that would make three major changes:
1) Raise the threshold to pass any amendment to 60% of the vote instead of 50% + 1.
2) For citizen-initiated amendments, require signatures of 5% of the electors in all 88 counties, rather than in 44 counties and require signatures from 10% of the electors who voted for governor in the previous gubernatorial election.
3) Remove the 10-day cure period. (A signature becomes invalid if someone signed it when they lived in one county and then later moved to another county.)
The justification for the changes is ostensibly to prevent special interests from interfering with Ohio’s constitution.
I argue that the opposite is true. These changes would encourage even more special interest money into the state in order to gather more signatures and run more ads.
Citizen-initiated amendments are already difficult to pass. Since 2006 out of 94 citizen-initiated petitions filed, 53 were certified, and only seven made it to the ballot (https://bit.ly/3JINQYX). In the last 50 years, 11 out of 40 citizen-initiated constitutional amendments passed. Only 7% of petitions made it to the ballot and 27.5% passed (https://bit.ly/3NWXytc). However, 82% of the ones that did pass, already passed by over 60% of the vote (https://bit.ly/46sxJZz).
As indicated by these numbers our constitution doesn’t need to be saved or protected nor do they warrant a special election.
Who is this amendment really benefiting? It’s not the people of Ohio.
Vote “no” on Issue 1. Early voting starts Tuesday and Election Day is Aug. 8.
Sharlyn Katzner
Bowling Green
