Ohio elections board refuses to allow trans woman to run for office because of old law

Vanessa Joy
Photo: Screenshot / News 5 Cleveland

The county elections board that disqualified a transgender candidate for Ohio state office because she did not include her deadname on petitions circulated to potential voters is refusing to reverse its decision, even after pressure from the state’s governor and other trans candidates being to run for office without disclosing their deadnames in Ohio.

Despite collecting enough signatures to run as a Democrat for Ohio’s firmly Republican House District 50, real estate photographer Vanessa Joy learned earlier this month that she had been disqualified from the race by the Stark County Board of Elections due to an obscure state law requiring candidates to disclose any name changes that have taken place within the last five years.

Notably, the 1995 law was not mentioned in the Ohio secretary of state’s 2024 candidate guide and has not been included in previous candidate guides in recent years. Nor did the candidacy petition form Joy filled out include any mention of the law or space to list any name changes.

Joy requested a reconsideration of the decision, according to a January 19 statement from the Stark County Board of Elections. The board denied her request, citing an Ohio Supreme Court case that found that..

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