Ohio state legislative candidates will no longer appear on primary ballots this May following a directive from the secretary of state Wednesday night.
The candidates will be removed from the primary ballots in response to a Supreme Court of Ohio ruling nixing map proposals, according to a directive from Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose to the county board of elections.
“In the wake of the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision last week invalidating the February 24, 2022, General Assembly district plan, it is not possible to include the primary contests for the Ohio House, Ohio Senate, and State Central Committee on the May 3, 2022, Primary Election ballot,” LaRose wrote in a letter to election boards.
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The state Legislature has not yet rescheduled the election date, LaRose noted in his letter. “This is the only currently lawful and reasonable option to continue to move forward toward the May 3, 2022, Primary Election at this unprecedented point in time,” he said.
Absentee ballots are set to go out by April 5. If the Redistricting Commission and the state Supreme Court reach an agreement by March 31, LaRose believes the state might be able to get legislative primaries back on the ballots in time for May, according to Cleveland.com. Otherwise, primary ballots for the state House, Senate, and Central Committee elections for the Republican and Democratic parties will not be counted.
Last week, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered the Ohio Redistricting Commission to draw a new state House and Senate map by March 28. The high court determined that the previous map, which was the third set of state maps to be thrown out by the court, violated the state’s anti-gerrymandering provisions. The court struck down the first set of state maps in January and the second set in February.
Members of the commission have argued that it is extremely difficult to meet the court’s requirements that the legislative maps achieve political proportionality in statewide elections while also adhering to anti-gerrymandering rules.
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Local elections, the Senate primary, and congressional primaries are still set to take place in May. However, while Ohio currently has a legally binding congressional map in place, Democrats recently filed a lawsuit hoping to get the high court to toss out those new lines. The lawsuit could nullify the congressional map, which could prevent congressional primaries from taking place in May as well.
Ohio’s Legislature could either move the May 3 primary date or leave it as is and establish another date for the straggling primaries to take place once the legal skirmish is settled, LaRose said.
