Appeals court greenlights Ohio GOP’s voter registration proof of citizenship requirement for midterms

By Jacob Knutson

A voter marking a ballot at a library in Kent, Ohio, in May 2026. (Photo: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
A voter marking a ballot at a library in Kent, Ohio, in May 2026. (Photo: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

A federal appeals court lifted a lower-court ruling* that blocked a new Republican-backed state law requiring documentary proof of citizenship when people register to vote while applying for a driver’s license.

The stay issued by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday means some voters will be required to provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote for the upcoming midterm elections.

In a country with no single, standardized system to prove citizenship, the new requirement could prevent voters from registering, and ultimately voting.

U.S. Circuit Judges Whitney Hermandorfer and John Nalbandian, who were nominated by President Donald Trump, granted Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s request for a stay.

They claimed U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. erred last month in finding that the new law likely violates the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) by requiring more than the minimum necessary amount of information to assess an applicant’s eligibility to vote.

Based on that finding, Oliver blocked the law, ruling in favor of Red Wine & Blue and the Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans, two nonpartisan civic engagement groups that also challenged the law as unconstitutionally vague in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

U.S. Circuit Judge Kevin Ritz, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, dissented from the stay, saying the law is antithetical to the NVRA.

“There is a strong interest in ensuring that citizens can register to vote—a process that the NVRA is meant to facilitate, not hamper,” Ritz wrote. “And nothing about the district court’s injunction threatens the integrity of elections or Ohio’s ability to preclude voting by those who are not entitled to vote.”

Ritz added that voters who register through other means, or who go to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles exclusively to register, will not have to provide documentary proof of citizenship. Instead, they will just have to sign a statement attesting they are citizens. 

That had been the requirement for all voters to register in the state until Ohio Republicans passed the motor vehicles registration restriction through a transportation spending bill last year.

*The Elias Law Group (ELG) is representing the plaintiffs in the case. ELG Firm Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.