The kids aren’t voting
Just 23% of Ohio’s 18-year-olds are registered to vote, a number that ranks among the lowest in the country, according to updated numbers compiled by a nonpartisan advocacy organization.
The Civics Center tracks registration rates for the country’s youngest eligible voters in 31 U.S. states, a number limited by their ability to acquire commercially available voter data. Ohio’s registration rate is the 28th-lowest. The 23% registration rate is significantly lower than comparable states like North Carolina (58%), Iowa (47%) and Florida (46%). Among neighbors, it’s lower than Michigan (79%), Indiana (31%), Kentucky (28%) but higher than Pennsylvania (22%).
Laura Brill, the CEO of the Civics Center, said a big factor is that Ohio’s voting registration laws are relatively restrictive.
One example: Ohio only lets young people register to vote if they will be 18 at the time of the next November election. Some Republican-led states like Florida, Louisiana and Utah allow young voters to pre-register when they’re younger – giving them more time to get their materials together.
Ohio also lacks an automatic voter registration law, in which voter registration is triggered when someone interacts with different levels of state government. Republican Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose proposed a limited version of AVR in 2019, when he pitched automatically registering people to vote when they get or update their driver’s license unless they opt out. The proposal went nowhere.
There are also Ohio’s online registration requirements, which require voters to provide a driver’s license number or a state ID number, while registering to vote at a BMV requires proof of citizenship.
“These requirements hit young voters especially hard,” Brill said.
Socioeconomic factors could explain the lower youth voter registration rates, too – Ohio’s voter registration dashboard shows lower registration rates in some of the state’s poorest areas, particularly in Appalachia.
After struggling to get his automatic voter registration bill off the ground in 2019, LaRose pivoted to backing BMV modernization processes and increasing voter outreach – launching voting programs that target Black salons and barbershops, high school students and alcohol drinkers.
Through a program called Grads Vote, LaRose’s office recently sent over 150,000 voter-registration packets to graduating seniors.
LaRose said in an interview on Wednesday that outreach also includes presentations and demonstrations of voting machines at high schools. He said he sees this kind of outreach as part of his civic duty.
“Some people say, well, your job is to make voter registration available and convenient, and that’s true, but I also think it’s my job to actively encourage more voter registration,” LaRose said.
Asked if he thinks Ohio’s voting laws need updating to encourage more participation, LaRose said he didn’t see the need for specific changes. “There comes a point where it’s like, ‘OK, you either want to or you don’t. And we’re not going to force it on you.’”
But, he also said that improved education can play a role and brought up Republican governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s proposal to toughen civics education requirements for high school students.
We asked Brill if voter outreach is enough to increase Ohio’s youth voter registration rate.
“Just getting a form typically is not robust enough,” she said. “If that were sufficient, we would not be seeing registration rates in Ohio of 18-year-olds below 25%.”
Brill said students and teachers who care about the issue can check out the Civics Center’s training materials while parents can urge their kids to register and help guide them through the process.
“It’s one of the democracy problems where actually everybody can have a role and improve things,” Brill said.
2,049 provisional ballots rejected in May primary
It’s tough to know how many Ohioans were deterred from voting due to legal barriers like registration or lack of proper photo identification. But data from the Secretary of State’s office spells out what tripped up voters during the 2026 primary, where officials rejected 2,049 provisional ballots, which are only counted if voters prove their eligibility.
The most common culprit: 928 would-be voters weren’t registered.
Next, 760 people were rejected for failure to provide identification in compliance with a strict 2023 law passed by state Republicans. Those voters had four days after Election Day to return to a county board of elections office with proper identification to “cure” their ballot. They all failed to do so.
From there:
- 82 went to the wrong precinct
- 48 failed to provide a current address
- 47 failed to sign the provisional envelope
More voting news
Andrew took another deep dive this week into Republican and Democratic voter turnout in the primary election this May. Analyzing voter data that was released after the election, he found an explanation for why state Democrats voted in numbers that nearly matched the Republican turnout – a stark change from 2022, when Republicans cast twice as many primary ballots as Democrats.
The reasons? First, a drop in Republican turnout. Second, Democrats saw a significant number of previously unaffiliated voters request Democratic ballots for the first time in at least a while. Read more here, including details on how Cuyahoga County Democrats saw one of their biggest jumps in party affiliation for a primary election in the past two decades.
Preaching to the choir
Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told a conservative podcast host this week that if he’s elected governor, he will sign a voter ID law that’s even tougher than the one Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed last month.
“There’s some ways that statute could have been even stronger,” Ramaswamy said on “Strictly Speaking with Bob Frantz.”
“In every failure there’s a silver lining. What we’ll do is strengthen it, and we’ll sign it.”
In a 50-minute interview, Frantz also asked Ramaswamy about topics that he said are areas of concern for some conservatives he talks to. Ramaswamy, in turn, sold himself as holding the ability to deliver on conservative activists’ political dreams.
“If you’re looking at this from the outside and designing this to be teed up to be what the conservative grassroots have pleaded for, have wished for for decades, that’s teed up,” Ramaswamy said. “The question is now, are you ready to take the opportunity?”
Frantz asked Ramaswamy about his role providing pandemic advice to then-Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, who’s now a U.S. senator running alongside Ramaswamy in November.
Ramaswamy downplayed the formality of the role.
“There was no body or meeting room where I was in with Amy,” Ramaswamy said, referencing his Democratic opponent, Dr. Amy Acton, who advised Gov. Mike DeWine on his pandemic response. “You can forget about that. Jon Husted would call me for advice, and I gave him the advice: re-open the economy, take the steps that you possibly could as quickly as you could to reasonably re-open the economy. And I believe he has voiced that as well.”
“The problem is, Amy Acton had the keys to the kingdom,” Ramaswamy said.
In the news
Texas and Oklahoma companies to pay $242 million to frack 15,000 acres of Ohio public land: The Oil and Gas Land Management Commission selected winning bidders from Oklahoma and Texas to drill for oil and gas beneath thousands of acres of publicly owned wildlife preserves and a state park. Read more by Jake Zuckerman.
After SCOTUS ruling, Sen. Bernie Moreno pushes to end birthright citizenship. Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno wants to end birthright citizenship through legislation after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked President Donald Trump’s efforts to redefine it. Read more by The Columbus Dispatch’s Haley BeMiller.
Viles Dorsainvill, a Haitian community leader in Springfield, told the Springfield News Sun that he and other Haitians in the United States now will operate in “survival mode” after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling that revokes temporary protected status for the roughly 15,000 Haitians living in Springfield and permits the Trump administration to deport them.
The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, upheld a Mississippi law that allows late-arriving absentee ballots to still count, as long as they arrive within five business days after the election and carry a pre-Election Day postmark. Ohio Republicans moved last year to eliminate Ohio’s similar grace period, and a factor they cited was the likelihood that the grace period would be nullified by the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Mississippi case. Gov. Mike DeWine “reluctantly” signed the law citing that very reason – which turned out to be an incorrect prediction.
The Supreme Court also struck down longstanding campaign finance rules restricting political parties’ ability to coordinate with candidates, per NBC News. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit from Vice President JD Vance, who as a U.S. Senate candidate sued to challenge the rules in 2022 alongside then-U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot.
