A transgender woman running for an Ohio House seat has been disqualified for failing to disclose her former name on petitions circulated to voters, in violation of a seldom-enforced state law.
Local election officials informed Vanessa Joy, who hoped to run as a Democrat for Ohio House District 50, that she was not eligible to do so, despite having collected the signatures necessary to run.
Joy sought to run in a firmly Republican district covering Stark County, just south of Akron.
How in the heck does this work for someone who had their name changed for any other reason? Heck, what about married people who took their partner’s last name?
Name changes by marriage are specifically exempted… because this kind of disclosure is totally unnecessary and serves no purpose.
As I noticed literally right above your comment:
All retroactively disqualified!! Ohio is an autonomous zone now with no leaders.
They claim in the article an exception for marriage name changes, which is nonsense. If the reason for this law is to not have someone change their name to hide some negative past from voters, a marriage name change is still just as concealing. Sally Smith to Sally Michaels when there are thousands of Sally’s out there is just as much hiding as anything else.
This is actually a really interesting point I hadn’t thought about, would people in witness protection or those who had to change their name to hide from dangerous people be disqualified?
I don’t think people in witness protection want the publicity of running for office? On the other hand, Donald “My properties are both over and undervalued” Trump ran for president, so maybe?
Didn’t read the article, I take it?