Court refuses to reinstate Ohio GOP’s voting restriction during appeal

In a win for voters, a federal judge Wednesday refused to let Ohio election officials enforce the state’s proof-of-citizenship voter registration law while the state appeals an earlier ruling blocking the restriction. 

The decision keeps the law unenforceable as a key registration deadline approaches.

U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. denied Ohio officials’ request to pause his August preliminary injunction, which blocked enforcement of a law that required documentary proof-of-citizenship for people registering to vote through the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV).

The state also appealed the injunction to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals one day before and is likely to ask that court to step in and put Oliver’s ruling on hold.

For now, however, Ohio election officials must continue to comply with the injunction.

Oliver found that Ohio had not shown it was likely to succeed on appeal and rejected the state’s claim that complying with the ruling would impose overwhelming administrative burdens on election officials.

“Fundamentally, Defendants’ arguments that the Injunction irreparably harms them because it imposes ‘immense administrative burdens’ reveal either that Ohio cannot do what the NVRA requires, or it simply does not want to,” Oliver wrote. “Neither is a sound basis for staying the Injunction.”

The dispute centers on House Bill 54, a Republican-backed law that requires some Ohioans to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship before they can even be offered a voter registration application at the BMV.

Red Wine & Blue and the Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans* sued last year, arguing that the requirement violates the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), a federal law designed to make voter registration easier by requiring states to offer registration opportunities when people apply for or renew driver’s licenses.

Oliver agreed in August that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed, finding that Ohio’s additional documentation requirement went beyond what federal law allows.

In Wednesday’s ruling, he again emphasized that Ohio already considers a signed attestation of citizenship sufficient for voter registration outside the BMV context.

The judge also rejected Ohio’s argument that the injunction came too close to the election and risked disrupting election administration. 

Ohio’s voter registration deadline is Oct. 5.

Oliver instead warned of the opposite risk: eligible citizens losing their opportunity to register.

“If an eligible citizen misses the voter registration deadline because he or she was not proactively offered the opportunity to register to vote in conjunction with a driver’s license application, then he or she is effectively ‘turned away from the polls,’” Oliver wrote.

The court also found that the public interest favored keeping the law blocked, noting that the plaintiffs had shown a strong likelihood that the restriction violates federal law.

“What the Injunction Order does do is enjoin the enforcement of a statute that violates federal law and hinders eligible citizens’ fundamental right to vote,” Oliver wrote. “The NVRA was enacted to make voter registration for federal elections easier, not more arduous.”

Oliver ordered Ohio officials to comply with the injunction “forthwith.”

The next fight is now likely to move quickly to the 6th Circuit, where Ohio can ask the appeals court to grant the stay Oliver just denied.

*The Elias Law Group (ELG) represents the pro-voting parties in this lawsuit. ELG Firm Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.