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Tag: Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose

  • LaRose shares ‘exclusive announcement’ on election integrity with anti-abortion group

    LaRose shares ‘exclusive announcement’ on election integrity with anti-abortion group

    Ohio Secretary of State Frank Larose mingles before the 2024 State of the State address in the Ohio House chambers at the Ohio Statehouse. (Pool photo by Barbara J. Perenic, Columbus Dispatch.)

    By:  – Ohio Capital Journal

    Ohio elections chief last year allowed the group to manipulate ballot language

    Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has provided an announcement on election integrity “exclusively” to anti-abortion Ohio Right to Life, the group said in a Monday press release. It contains a link to a YouTube video in which LaRose talks about how Ohio elections are safe because the nuts and bolts of the process are overseen at the local level by officials from both parties.

    Last year, LaRose consulted with Ohio Right to Life and other anti-abortion groups as he and his office worked on ballot language for an abortion-rights amendment they all vehemently opposed.

    LaRose’s office didn’t respond to questions for this story.

    In the video, the secretary of state repeated his saying that in Ohio, “it’s easy to vote and hard to cheat.” And he lays out several reasons why it’s hard at least for voters themselves to cheat.

    LaRose explains that county boards of election are each run by two Republicans and two Democrats and that voting machines are “airlocked,” meaning they’re never connected to the internet and thus not vulnerable to hacking. LaRose added that even access to the machines has to be on a bipartisan basis.

    “The voting machines are under bipartisan surveillance and they’re kept in a storage system with dual locks and keys that require a Republican key to open the door and a Democratic key to make sure that both parties are present,” he said.

    LaRos later added, “We take election integrity seriously here in Ohio.”

    By LaRose’s own reckoning, just 0.0005% of the ballots cast in Ohio’s 2020 presidential election were “potentially illegal.” Meanwhile, LaRose has also argued that former President Donald Trump had a legitimate point about voter fraud.

    As of last year, LaRose had forwarded 521 cases of possible noncitizen voting for prosecution over five years. That resulted in just one prosecution for voter fraud.

    In addition, in the video he recorded for Right to Life, LaRose said that audits comparing electronic vote results to paper backups have been correct more than 99.9% of the time since he took office at the beginning of 2019.

    Despite the lack of a statistical case that there’s a problem, LaRose has taken aggressive steps that he says will protect election integrity.

    For example, he’s purged hundreds of thousands of Ohioans from the registration rolls. Many were eligible voters who were purged for not voting in recent cycles even though critics point out that there’s no constitutional basis to argue that just because a citizen hasn’t voted in some past elections he or she is ineligible.

    A progressive watchdog group, Dēmos, found that LaRose’s office has some of the worst practices for ensuring that eligible voters aren’t improperly purged from the Ohio rolls. And civil rights advocates say Ohio’s purges disproportionately target voters of color, who tend not to vote for the GOP, LaRose’s party.

    On the issue of citizen-proposed constitutional amendments, as chair of the Ohio Ballot Board, LaRose has significant control over the description of an amendment that appears on the ballot — in other words, what voters read when they enter the voting booth.

    He’s under intense fire this year for the language he used to describe the Issue 1 amendment aimed at removing elected officials from the process of drawing maps of Ohio’s legislative and congressional districts in favor of a citizens commission.

    In 2021 and 2022, LaRose and the other Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission ignored seven bipartisan rulings by the Ohio Supreme Court that said the maps they drew violated earlier anti-gerrymandering amendments that were passed by huge majorities of Ohioans.

    The proposed amendment that will appear on the November 2024 ballot is meant to be more water-tight than the earlier ones by removing politicians from the process, replacing them with citizens, and retaining a ban on partisan gerrymandering. But LaRose wrote ballot language that opponents say is intended to sway voters against the amendment, which LaRose publicly opposes.

    Last year, LaRose was similarly accused of manipulating ballot language against Ohio’s reproductive rights amendment when he consulted with Ohio Right to Life and other anti-abortion groups in drafting the ballot language. Nevertheless, Ohio voters passed the reproductive rights amendment by 14 points.

    ____________

    Marty Schladen
    Marty Schladen

    Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.

    Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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  • Ohio Supreme Court approves abortion rights amendment Ballot Board summary for voters with one tweak

    Ohio Supreme Court approves abortion rights amendment Ballot Board summary for voters with one tweak

    BY: 

    The Ohio Supreme Court has ordered one tweak to summary language approved by Republicans on the Ohio Ballot Board for voters to see in November on a proposed reproductive rights amendment. The split state supreme court rejected using the full text of the proposed amendment and declared that that summary language that voters will see on their ballots is not misleading.

    That summary language was written by the office of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican ballot board member who has spoken out against November’s Issue 1 reproductive rights amendment proposal, and campaigned vigorously for August’s Issue 1 proposal to make amendments harder to pass, saying that the Aug. 8 effort was “100% about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.” Issue 1 in August was rejected by voters 57% to 43%.

    LaRose said at the Aug. 24 ballot board meeting that he “worked extensively on drafting this” November ballot language.

    Fellow Ohio Ballot Board member, Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, explicitly spoke against the November amendment proposal during that same ballot board meeting where the summary language for voters to see on their ballots was approved by the board in a 3-2 decision.

    The coalition proposing November’s reproductive rights amendment sued to the Ohio Supreme Court claiming that the summary language is deceptive and asking the full amendment text be used instead.

    They argued that the summary makes changes advocates say alter the language in a biased way, such as using “unborn child” rather than the medically accurate term “fetus,” and changing “pregnant patient” to “pregnant woman.” The summary also only lists 1 of 5 protected rights included in the amendment, focusing on abortion and failing to mention contraception, miscarriage care, fertility treatment, and continuing one’s pregnancy.

    Moreover, the abortion rights groups and individuals said the summary actually “inverts” protections that would be given in the amendment by saying the amendment would “always allow an unborn child to be aborted” if a physician determines it necessary. Amendment supporters say the actual language of the amendment “would prohibit such an abortion if the patient objects to it.”

    Finally, the complaint took issue with the summary language saying “citizens of the state of Ohio” would be prohibited from enacting laws regulating abortion in certain ways instead of “the state of Ohio” would be so prohibited.

    The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that this last part is the only tweak the Ballot Board must make — they can not use “the citizens of the state of Ohio” instead of “the state of Ohio.”

    ______________

    Proposed amendment: “B. The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either: 1. An individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or 2. A person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the pregnant individual’s health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care. C. As used in this Section: … 2. “State” includes any governmental entity and any political subdivision.”

    The Ohio Ballot Board’s language that needs changed to remove “citizens”: “The proposed amendment would: • Prohibit the citizens of the State of Ohio from directly or indirectly burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion before an unborn child is determined to be viable, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means. • Only allow the citizens of the State of Ohio to prohibit an abortion after an unborn child is determined by a pregnant woman’s treating physician to be viable and only if the physician does not consider the abortion necessary to protect the pregnant woman’s life or health.”

    ______________

    The Ohio Supreme Court wrote they were tasked with determining whether the GOP summary language is “impermissibly argumentative, either in favor of or against the issue.”

    Regarding the Ballot Board summary’s failure to mention 4 of 5 categories included in the reproductive rights amendment proposal, the Republican court majority cited the amendment’s own emphasis on abortion care and said “the omission is not material when considering the amendment as a whole.”

    Regarding the Ohio Ballot Board changing “fetus” to “unborn child” in the summary for voters, the majority said this is not improper persuasion. They did not elucidate an argument but instead quoted precedent from a 2021 court decision: “[I]f ballot language is factually accurate and addresses a subject that is in the proposed amendment itself, it should not be deemed argumentative.”

    The court majority referenced this again later in rejecting that other portions of the summary language are weighted against the proposal.

    ______________

    Proposed Amendment: “A. Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on: … 3. continuing one’s own pregnancy; B. The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either: 1. An individual’s voluntary exercise of this right, However, abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability. But in no case may such an abortion be prohibited if in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient’s treating physician it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.”

    Ballot Language: “The proposed amendment would: • Prohibit the citizens of the State of Ohio from directly or indirectly burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion before an unborn child is determined to be viable, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means. • Only allow the citizens of the State of Ohio to prohibit an abortion after an unborn child is determined by a pregnant woman’s treating physician to be viable and only if the physician does not consider the abortion necessary to protect the pregnant woman’s life or health; and • Always allow an unborn child to be aborted at any stage of the pregnancy, regardless of viability if, in the treating physician’s determination, the abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant woman’s life or health.”

    ______________

    The court majority wrote, “While (litigants) do not like the way in which the language is phrased, the structure of statements is not improperly argumentative. As stated above, this court will not deem language to be argumentative when it is accurate and addresses a subject in the proposed amendment.”

    Ohio Supreme Court Democrats agreed with ordering the change from “citizens of the state” to “the state,” but panned the approval of the rest of the ballot board’s language.

    Justice Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, said the Ohio Ballot Board “obfuscated the actual language” of the proposed amendment by “substituting their own language and creating out of whole cloth a veil of deceit and bias in their desire to impose their views on Ohio voters…”

    Democratic Justice Melody Stewart said that the Ohio Ballot Board failed its duty and instead it “crafted partisan ballot language designed to do any number of things, but not simply designed to do its job—that is, inform voters of the substance of the proposed amendment.”

    Democratic Justice Michael Donnelly said of the Ohio Ballot Board that “it’s unfortunate that advocacy seems to have infiltrated a process that is meant to be objective and neutral,” but that he’s confident that voters will be informed about the issue in November.

  • Ohio SOS gives yet another reason to make it a lot harder for voters to amend Constitution

    Ohio SOS gives yet another reason to make it a lot harder for voters to amend Constitution

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    Secretary of State Frank LaRose announces the referral of 117 cases of alleged voting and voter registration fraud stemming from the 2020 elections. Photo courtesy The Ohio Channel.

    BY:  – Ohio Capital Journal

    Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose on Wednesday offered another rationale for making it much more difficult for voters to amend the Ohio Constitution. Now he’s saying it’s needed to fight a possible power grab like one that grew out of a massive bribery and money-laundering scandal.

    But LaRose didn’t mention in his op-ed that his name came up repeatedly in a criminal trial related to the scandal and that he appeared to be in close communication with some of its central figures.

    Nor did his office respond when asked whether LaRose ever spoke out against the corrupt utility bailout before the FBI started arresting people in July 2020.

    Slippery explanations

    The secretary of state — who is said to be eyeing a run for U.S. Senate next year — has been pushing to increase the portion of votes needed for a citizen-initiated amendment from 50% to 60%. As he and his allies have, they’ve given a shifting set of reasons for why that’s needed.

    Last November, during a lame-duck session of the legislature, LaRose and state Rep. Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, held a press conference saying that the change was necessary to prevent wanton amendments to the Ohio Constitution by monied special interests. But they didn’t point to any examples of how that had happened in the past.

    Many suspected an ulterior motive.

    LaRose sat on a Republican-dominated redistricting commission that last year ignored seven Ohio Supreme Court rulings saying that the legislative and congressional maps the commission produced violated anti-gerrymandering amendments overwhelmingly approved by Ohio voters. That prompted Maureen O’Connor, the outgoing Republican chief justice, to urge Ohioans to pass new, more-tightly written amendments this year.

    Ohio was also roiled when a highly restrictive abortion law took effect last June just after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and horror stories poured out of abortion clinics and hospitals. An effort quickly started to get an amendment on the ballot protecting abortion rights after other protections easily passed in other states.

    But at last year’s presser, LaRose denied that his goal was to block anti-gerrymandering or abortion-rights amendments. The constitutional change he was advocating was a long-term, fundamental one that he didn’t seek to block such short-term disputes, he claimed.

    Just weeks later, however, Stewart, LaRose’s sidekick at the presser, sent a letter to his GOP colleagues in the House explaining the real reasons for making it harder for Ohioans to amend their constitution: to stop abortion-rights and anti-gerrymandering amendments that appear to be favored by strong majorities of Ohioans.

     

    [/vc_column_text][vc_raw_html]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[/vc_raw_html][vc_column_text]The attempt to rush a bill through lame duck last year failed.

    Now Stewart, LaRose and their allies are trying to pass it through Ohio’s now-unconstitutionally gerrymandered legislature. If it passes, it would put the measure requiring 60% of the vote to amend the state constitution on the ballot. And, since the vote would be under the existing rules, it would require just 50% of the vote to pass.

    Also on the pile of accusations that it’s a naked power grab is that LaRose, Stewart and their allies want to put the measure on the ballot in a low-turnout August election. They’re doing so just months after passing a bill that had LaRose’s support to eliminate such elections as costly and unnecessary — and three months before the abortion amendment is expected to hit the ballot.

    A new reason

    While he’s being accused of attempting a power grab, LaRose says he’s trying to stop them.

    On Tuesday, The Columbus Dispatch published an op-ed in which he furnished yet another reason to make it harder for voters to change the state Constitution. He cited an attempt by former House Speaker Larry Householder to pass an amendment changing the state’s term limits so Householder could stay speaker for another 16 years.

    It was part of a breathtaking scheme in which Householder and his allies took more than $61 million from Akron-based FirstEnergy and other utilities, used the money to make him speaker in January 2019, and then pass and protect a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout that mostly went to FirstEnergy.

    Fresh off the passage of the bailout, Householder raised millions in early 2020 from FirstEnergy and AEP for his scheme that would allow him to stay longer in office. But it died with his arrest that July.

    It might seem ironic that LaRose would use a corruption scandal to gut a 1912 reform measure that was aimed at curbing corrupt, unresponsive government, but that’s what he argued. He said all it takes to change the Constitution now “is a well-funded, dishonest political campaign and a simple majority vote.”

    LaRose added that Householder planned to call his tenure-extension scheme “Ohioans for Legislative Term Limits, a deceptive name for a constitutional amendment that would more than double his term in office. It should come as no surprise that FirstEnergy Corporation, the company at the center of Householder’s racketeering scandal, agreed to bankroll the amendment campaign.”

    Significant omissions

    While he accused his opponents of “hysterical hyperbole” as he tries to make it 20% harder for voters to succeed in the already difficult process to amend the Ohio Constitution, there were some important things LaRose didn’t say in his Op-Ed.

    For starters, FirstEnergy didn’t only bankroll Householder in 2018 as the now-convicted former speaker elected a team of lieutenants who would hand him the speaker’s gavel. The utility also bankrolled LaRose to the tune of $25,000 that year as he ran for secretary of state.

    It was part of nearly $50,000 that the energy company — which signed a deferred prosecution agreement in the Householder scandal — has given LaRose, the campaign-finance tracker FollowTheMoney.org reports.

    And while LaRose is decrying the bailout now that there have been arrests and convictions, there was reason to know there was something wrong with it well before they took place.

    Insiders knew that somebody was burying Capitol Square in cash throughout the 2019 passage of House Bill 6, the corrupt utility bailout. That was especially true as FirstEnergy dumped what the FBI later determined was $36 million into a blatantly-dishonest-but-successful fight to beat back a repeal.

    Because the funds were non-disclosable 501(c)(4) dark money, it was impossible for the public to know exactly where they were coming from until the feds stepped in and used subpoenas and other special powers to find out.

    But HB 6 was such bad legislation and the campaign to stop the repeal so over-the-top that there was plenty of reason to suspect that somebody was being bought off to pass it. It was a massive corporate bailout that Householder and others were trying to officially declare a tax. Republican lawmakers who didn’t want to cast such a damaging vote described withering pressure from House leadership.

    Former friends

    LaRose’s office didn’t answer Wednesday when asked if the secretary of state ever spoke out against HB 6 before the FBI started making arrests.

    In the Cincinnati corruption trial that ran from late January to mid-March, federal prosecutors presented several communications to the jury that might indicate that LaRose was actually sympathetic to the effort to pass and protect the corrupt bailout.

    On July 23, 2019, as the repeal effort got underway, text messages flew between two prominent figures in the scandal: Matt Borges, the former Ohio Republican Party chairman who was convicted along with Householder; and Juan Cespedes, a lobbyist who pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors.

    Borges told Cespedes he had received “a message from the secretary of state on the ballot-measure issue.”

    The men were hoping for help from LaRose. He’s chairman of the Ohio Ballot Board, which, along with Attorney General Dave Yost, has to approve the language of constitutional amendments before they’re circulated for the hundreds of thousands of needed voter signatures — and before they’re placed on the ballot.

    In the case of the HB 6 repeal, Yost initially sent the language back for revisions, then he and the ballot board approved it. But that wasn’t before the original 90 days opponents had to gather the signatures was whittled down to 53.

    In the end, time ran out before opponents could gather them. But at the beginning of the effort, Borges seemed to be talking to LaRose about what LaRose needed in exchange for his help.

    “LaRose is expecting us to be publicly supportive of him,” Borges said. “Apparently petitioners (for the repeal of HB 6) are going to call on him to step down from the ballot board because of ‘conflicts.’ He can be our friend in this process, so let’s be prepared to speak for him.”

    Continuing communication

    Later in the repeal fight, FirstEnergy’s two top executives discussed asking LaRose’s help with Yost. In addition to hamstringing the petition effort, supporters of the corrupt bailout wanted to have it officially declared a tax, and thus legally exempt from repeal.

    “I’ve been asked by (subsidiary FirstEnergy Solutions) to call Frank LaRose to get Frank to call Dave Yost,” Vice President Michael Dowling texted CEO Chuck Jones, according to messages put into evidence by prosecutors. “If Frank tells Yost that he believes HB 6 is a tax, Yost will come out publicly and say it, which (FirstEnergy Solutions) thinks helps with the Supreme Court. Frank is reluctant to make the call. I have a call in to Frank and I will ask him to do it.”

    LaRose may have been reluctant about making that call. But he apparently wasn’t reluctant to keep talking to the people who funded the scandal he’s now condemning and using as a reason to make it harder for voters to amend the Ohio Constitution.

    In October 2019 — shortly before the repeal effort failed — Jones sent a text to John Kiani, the chairman of the FirstEnergy subsidiary that was to receive $1 billion of the bailout. It indicated that both LaRose and Householder had been providing the FirstEnergy CEO with “private” information on the repeal effort.

    “For what it’s worth, LaRose and Householder think it’s game over,” Jones told Kiani. “But that is a private conversation unless they’ve told you the same thing. And Householder has a ‘quick fix’ anyway.”

    And then in November 2019 — just after the repeal failed — other messages indicated that LaRose wanted to cement a relationship with Kiani, the hard-charging former Enron executive whom Cespedes testified stood to make $100 million off the sale of FirstEnergy’s bailed-out nuclear and coal plants.

    Borges texted Cespedes that LaRose, “told me he wants to get to know Kiani, and I said, ‘Are you sure about that?’”

    Cespedes replied, “He will live to regret that.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

    ____________________________________

    MARTY SCHLADEN

    Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.

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  • Our ability to get out our clipboards and defend the rights of everyday Ohioans is at risk!

    Our ability to get out our clipboards and defend the rights of everyday Ohioans is at risk!

    An Emergency Appeal from the

    League of Women Voters of Ohio

    Ohioans have had the right to direct democracy since 1912, but now lawmakers and Secretary LaRose are going after the power of the people. Because of gerrymandering and dark money, Ohioans have faced years of unpopular and unjust legislation related to democracy, women’s reproductive rights, public education, and so much more. 

    Yesterday,  Rep Brian Stewart and Secretary of State LaRose proposed a bill that would require a 60% yes vote to pass a citizen initiated constitutional amendment, while maintaining that constitutional amendments referred by the Legislature would still only require a simple majority vote to pass. 

    LaRose claims that this measure is necessary to protect the Ohio Constitution, and that the time is right. We say ABSOLUTELY NOT!

    • Ohio citizens must already overcome extreme challenges to placing an issue on the ballot. The process requires hundreds of thousands of verified signatures and a strict geographical distribution across at least half of Ohio’s 88 counties. 
    • The process is not overused. In fact, since 1950, only ten out of 44 ballot measures have passed (23%). If so few citizen initiated amendments pass, what problem are we looking to solve?
    • If this measure passes the Ohio Legislature, it will be on the ballot in May 2023; primary elections in odd numbered years have always historically had very low voter turnout. As little as 10% of the electorate will likely decide how Ohio citizens can practice direct democracy and affect change. 

    Send a message to your elected leaders and demand that they stop this threat to democracy!

    More about the proposal to restrict access to Ohio Voters…

    Ohio Republicans launch effort to make citizen-led amendments harder to pass…

    Loveland Magazine – Nov 22, 2022

  • GOP officials and a collegiate political scandal could nix Dem’s ballot slot in SE Ohio

    GOP officials and a collegiate political scandal could nix Dem’s ballot slot in SE Ohio

    Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose talks to reporters. (Photo by Susan Tebben, OCJ.)

    BY: JAKE ZUCKERMAN – Ohio Capital Journal

    The story of the ballot fight includes a scandal in Ohio University’s Student Senate, a primary election delayed by Ohio’s messy redistricting clash, a Democrat’s resignation after winning an uncontested race, and some of the finer points of election law.

    The result is Jay Edwards, a three-term Republican incumbent, currently running unopposed in one of the more competitive districts in the November General Election.

    Ohio law allows the two major political parties to replace candidates who withdraw after primaries. The Democratic Party chose Tanya Conrath — a southeast Ohio native, attorney and nonprofit leader — to fill a hole left by the victor who dropped out.

    Republicans on the Athens County Board of Elections, however, objected, leaving the matter tied 2-2. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican responsible for casting the deciding vote, voted against letting Conrath on the ballot.

    He said because Rhyan Goodman, the Democratic candidate who won an uncontested primary, resigned before officials formally counted the vote and certified his victory, then the law doesn’t guarantee the Democrats the right to replace a candidate.

    “They’re trying to cheat their way into not giving [incumbent GOP Rep. Jay Edwards] an opponent and not giving voters a choice,” Conrath said in an interview.

     Tanya Conrath. Courtesy photo.

    The issue traces back to February when Goodman, as a 19-year-old Ohio University student, filed to run in Ohio’s 94th House District using his dorm as his filing address. In a matter of weeks, however, Goodman met his first brush with political scandal — not via state politics but with the Ohio University Student Senate.

    Goodman faced impeachment for allegations that he lodged false accusations in an anonymous letter against the student treasurer and encouraged other student senators to accuse her of intimidation, according to student publication The New Political. He resigned just before his trial was set to start.

    In the fallout of some “mistakes that might have been made,” Goodman drifted away from the Ohio House race, according to Athens County Democratic Party Chairman Sean Parsons. In the runup to the primary, Goodman had no campaign website, no social media, and did not respond to phone calls from a reporter.

    He won 100% of the 1,174 votes cast in the Aug. 2 primary. Regardless, six days after he won the election but before county officials formally certified the vote, Goodman withdrew his name from contention for the November election. He did not respond to calls or emails.

    Rep. Allison Russo, the ranking House Democrat, defended the lack of failsafe candidates in the race. She said candidate recruitment is difficult in districts that weren’t finalized at the time, some of which were later found to be unconstitutional gerrymanders. What Democrat would step into that uncertainty knowing Republicans control the game?

    She said the party developed “some concerns” about Goodman in the spring, but there was little to be done without a certain election date or district lines to go off. Conrath, Russo said, followed the rules and the Republicans are just afraid of the competition.

    “Not surprisingly, Secretary LaRose once again put partisan interests over running fair elections and couldn’t even cite any case law to support his decision,” she said.

    Deadlines

    Ohio law allows a “party candidate” who withdraws after a primary but before a general election to be replaced by whomever party officials see fit. This must be done by 4 p.m. on the 86th day before a general election — Aug. 15.

    Primary elections are typically held in May. However, the Ohio Supreme Court repeatedly found Republicans’ proposed decennial redistricting maps to be unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. The court’s majority demanded fairer maps. Republicans refused. The standoff ended with a second primary election in August after a federal court ordered the election to proceed with a map the state Supreme Court found unconstitutional.

    Although the election date changed, some of the relevant administrative deadlines did not. Conrath, who had been contacted by the party and urged to run, had until Aug. 15 to file. The board of elections didn’t certify Goodman’s victory until Aug. 17.

    However, Republicans on the Athens County Board of Elections argued that because Goodman wasn’t certified at the time of Conrath’s filing, the party therefore has no eligible candidate to replace. Larose agreed.

    “As such, Rhyan Goodman was not the official nominee and party candidate at the time of his withdrawal,” he said in casting his tie-breaking vote. “The Athens County Democratic Party … could not replace him prior to the official certification of the Aug. 2, 2022 primary results.”

    Conrath’s lawsuit in the Supreme Court disputes the idea that the lack of certification means Conrath can’t be chosen as a replacement. In court documents, she cites a similar case from 1992 in which a Republican candidate running for county recorder withdrew from the ballot after some primary votes were cast and his name was already printed on the ballot. The secretary of state at the time ordered against certifying the candidacy.

    The Ohio Supreme Court reversed, finding boards of election have a “clear duty” to count ballots cast for a candidate even despite an “untimely withdrawal” from consideration. The court also held that candidacies “retain vitality” for some purposes even after withdrawing.

    LaRose, through a spokesman, did not respond to inquiries. The Supreme Court ordered him to respond in court to Conrath’s lawsuit by Wednesday.

    Edwards, reached via text message, didn’t respond when asked if he thought the court should let Conrath run.

    Parsons tentatively acknowledged that the Democrats should have fielded another candidate for the race. However, he said the chronic uncertainty given redistricting and the mishmash of deadlines weakened the process. And Republicans’ reasoning, he said, doesn’t pass the smell test.

    “They’re not operating in good faith on this issue; It’s an attempt to keep somebody off the ballot,” he said. “It’s always better to have choice. That’s the way representative democracies work.”

    Conrath

    Conrath describes herself as a fifth generation Appalachian. She was born and raised in southeast Ohio and married a fellow native. After graduating Ohio University as an undergrad and Ohio State University for law school, she worked in a law practice in Athens.

    She owns a home appraisals business, works as associate director of the Ohio University Innovation Center, and works at an adult career center as well. She has served on nonprofit boards including My Sister’s Place and Planned Parenthood of Southeast Ohio.

    She said she was invited to run after Goodman’s resignation in August and made the decision and filing in a “whirlwind.” She had previously toyed around with the idea of running, but the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn its landmark ruling establishing women’s constitutional right to abortion access cemented her decision.

    “The Dobbs decision and watching Ohio put in a six-week abortion ban was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she said.

    Besides the court’s findings of partisan gerrymandering, the vast majority of statehouse elections are unlikely to produce competitive general elections. Edwards’ district, however, is comparatively tight. Dave’s Redistricting App estimates it gives Republicans a 52%-45% edge. While President Donald Trump won the district in a landslide, Gov. Mike DeWine won it by a narrow 1.5%, according to analysis from the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association.

    Conrath expressed confidence she’d prevail in court. She said voters, not partisan officials, should pick their representatives.

    “This is a political play, and I think everyone knows it,” she said. “And I hope the Supreme Court sees this for what it is.”

  • Students from Loveland High School’s Tigers Inc. meet with Ohio Secretary of State

    Students from Loveland High School’s Tigers Inc. meet with Ohio Secretary of State

    Students from Tigers Inc. at Loveland High School, with their teacher Craig Murnan (on the far right), after registering to vote on January 9.

    Loveland, Ohio – “It was every bit of what Mr. LaRose expressed in that tweet,” said Craig Murnan, business teacher at Loveland High. “The students led a presentation about their business venture, received their Ohio nonprofit status and made sure to become registered voters while they were in the office. They are very much leaders by example and I couldn’t be more pleased with how they prepared for and carried out their meeting with the Secretary.”

    The students in Mr. Murnan’s class Tigers Inc. at Loveland High School (LHS) had the opportunity to meet with and present to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose on January 9. Following their meeting, LaRose tweeted “High School students here in Ohio taking advantage of the easy process to start a business…Thanks for filing with our office and stopping by to talk about your new LHS Tigers Inc. nonprofit… And of course, every student left our office a registered voter!”

    new twitter icon 400x400 with DS_edited.Tigers Inc. was launched last fall as one component in the district’s effort to expand programming and courses at Loveland High School. Mr. Murnan, who worked for Ernst & Young LLP in the audit and financial consulting field, but changed career paths and became an educator.

    The class motto is “Learning by experience, from experience”.

    As an Ohio nonprofit, Tigers Inc. will strive to collaborate with the community and partner with professionals to find tangible solutions to problems, all the while, the students are given the opportunity to network and advance their business acumen.

    The students gave a presentation to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

    Currently Tigers Inc. is the umbrella organization for three separate “cohorts”: Marketing, Strategic Project Management, and Wealth Management. More cohorts are being considered as additions. Running Tigers Inc. like an actual, traditional business allows students to apply their developing knowledge and skills across a range of areas. For example, the students have created a website (https://www.tigersinc.org/), established bylaws, appointed a board of directors, created fundraising strategies and much more. Last year, students in the wealth management cohort placed 1st and 7th in the National Stock Market Challenge by Personal Finance Lab.

    “The project-based learning component is what makes this such a compelling program for the students,” said Murnan. “It’s a real-world focused class, where we work with real-world business people, who step up to mentor and guide these students forward to gain the skills they need once they leave high school and college.”