(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today rejected the petition for the proposed Ohio Alternative Treatment Amendment because the petitioners did not submit the minimum valid signatures required.
On July 27th, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office received a written petition to amend the Ohio Constitution by adding the Ohio Alternative Treatment Amendment. The submission contained 61 part petitions with signatures from 22 counties. The part petitions were submitted to the respective boards of elections for signature verification. Of the 1,000 minimum signatures required to proceed with the constitutional amendment, the boards of elections reported receiving a total of only 534 valid signatures.
“Because your submission did not contain the verified signatures of at least one thousand qualified electors, we must reject it,” DeWine stated in his letter rejecting the petition. “The Attorney General’s Office has not made any determination concerning the summary language of the submission. This rejection is based upon the failure to obtain at least one thousand valid signatures.”
In order for a constitutional amendment to proceed, an initial petition containing summary language of the amendment and 1,000 signatures from Ohio registered voters must be submitted to the Ohio Attorney General. Once the summary language and initial signatures are certified, the Ohio Ballot Board would determine if the amendment contains a single issue or multiple issues. The petitioners must then collect signatures for each issue from registered voters in each of 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties, equal to 5 percent of the total vote cast in the county for the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election. Total signatures collected statewide must also equal 10 percent of the total vote cast for the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election.
The full text of today’s letter and of the initiative petitions submitted can be found at www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov/BallotInitiatives.
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