'Patently unconstitutional': Ohio GOP shredded by local newspaper for 'brazen' attempt to fool voters

Republicans in Ohio are trying to increase the vote percentage needed for voters to successfully pass ballot initiatives in their state – and the Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial board is accusing the party of trying to conceal this effort from voters.

In an editorial published Wednesday, the Plain Dealer editors accused Republican members of the Ohio Ballot Board of using deceptive language in an upcoming ballot initiative to dramatically raise the threshold for future ballot initiatives to pass.

"The wording that the board’s Republicans approved claims in its title that the proposal is aimed at, 'Elevating the standards to qualify for and to pass any constitutional amendment,'" the editors argue. "In fact, the amendment increases the requirements for getting an issue on the ballot. LaRose told reporters a dictionary indicates that “‘elevating’ means to raise or increase.” But voting booths aren’t stocked with dictionaries. Ordinary Ohioans don’t say, 'the bank elevated my credit-card interest rate' or 'the Browns elevated the score.'"

In addition to this, the wording fails to describe the existing law about ballot initiatives that would be changed, which they argue gives voters an incomplete picture of the proposal, which would enact a 60 percent supermajority threshold for successful initiatives.

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The goal of the initiative, note the editors, is to make getting an amendment that protects abortion rights in the state far harder to pass than would otherwise be the case.

The editorial urges the Ohio State Supreme Court to step in and "stop the Ballot Board’s brazen partisanship," which it says has gone so far as to be "patently unconstitutional."