OLBCF Opposes Issue 3 and Stands With the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

— The Ohio Legislative Black Caucus Foundation (OLBCF) today announced its opposition to Issue 3, the proposed constitutional amendment on Ohio's November ballot that would embed the state's restrictive voter identification requirements in the Ohio Constitution. OLBCF stands in full solidarity with the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus, which announced its opposition on August 11.

OLBC said it plainly: the problem is not identification, it is restriction. OLBCF brings the evidence of what that restriction costs.

In June, the Foundation released The State of Black Civic Power in Ohio, the first county-level study of Black midterm nonvoting in this state. It found that 603,000 eligible Black Ohioans did not cast a ballot in the last midterm, more people than live in the entire city of Cleveland, in a state where statewide races are decided by five to eight points. Ninety-five percent of them live in just eight counties. The report's central finding was that this absence is not apathy. It is the accumulated result of barriers built over years: closed early voting sites, aggressive roll purges, and outreach that never came.

Issue 3 removes none of those barriers. It hardens one of them. Ohio already accepts only a narrow list of photo identification at the polls, and Issue 3 would place that list in the constitution, where future lawmakers could not add a single acceptable form of ID without another statewide vote. It moves in one direction only.

"We have the data, and the data is not ambiguous," said former State Representative Shayla L. Davis, President and CEO of OLBCF. "Black Ohioans are not sitting out because they do not care. They are sitting out because the path to the ballot keeps getting narrower. Issue 3 takes that narrowness and carves it into the constitution, where it becomes nearly impossible to undo. We are asking Ohioans to widen the door, not weld it shut."

OLBCF joins OLBC in calling for the opposite approach: expanded early voting, protected mail-in access, a broader list of acceptable identification, and sustained voter education so that every lawful ballot is cast and counted.

OLBCF is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization. It does not endorse or oppose candidates or political parties. Its opposition to Issue 3 rests on ballot access and on the county-level evidence in its own research.

"Every generation of Black Ohioans has had to claim the vote and then defend it," Davis continued. "This November, that defense is on the ballot."

The State of Black Civic Power in Ohio is available at olbcfoundation.org.

OLBCF-Issue-3-Press-Release.pdf

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For media inquiries: Ashley Daniels, OLBCF Administration Office, office@olbcfoundation.org, 614-585-6645