Thomas Suddes: Legislators pound another non-issue with sledgehammer: noncitizen voting – By Thomas Suddes (Columbus Dispatch) / June 26, 2022
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com
Ohioans will see two proposed state constitutional amendments on November’s ballot, one of which drew some Democratic legislators’ votes, while the other is a Republican turnout special, handy for GOP candidates talking law ‘n’ order in this year’s Supreme Court elections.
The first proposed amendment would forbid noncitizens to vote in Ohio local elections. As it is, noncitizens may not vote in federal or state elections. But a while back, voters in the village of Yellow Springs, suburban Dayton’s counter-cultural mecca, amended their village’s charter to let noncitizens vote on local issues and contests. Legal route to reach that result: The state constitution’s home-rule guarantees to cities and villages.
Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose nixed that. Besides, the Legislative Service Commission reports, “It seems that no noncitizen has registered to vote in the village.”
