Ohio
Far fewer Ohio women could vote if top election officer gets way | Opinion
The SAVE acronym should stand for Suppress American Votes Everywhere.
Trump pushes voter ID bill that could burden married women
President Donald Trump is advocating for the passage of the SAVE America Act, a voter ID bill critics say could make voting harder for married women and other eligible voters.
Richard Topper has been a trial attorney in Columbus for 45 years and is actively involved in voting rights efforts.
As chief election officer of our state, Frank LaRose should be focused equally, if not more, on how election laws affect Ohio citizens’ rights to vote as he does to the miniscule numbers of undocumented citizens who attempted to vote in our elections.
To support our right to vote, LaRose, a Republican candidate for Ohio auditor of state, should speak out against the SAVE Act pending before the U.S. Senate.
The SAVE acronym should stand for Suppress American Votes Everywhere.
The bill would require all U.S. citizens to present a birth certificate or passport in person when they register to vote. The act could prevent thousands of Ohio citizens from participating in a single election.
The number far outweighs the 167 noncitizens whom, according to LaRose, “have appeared to cast a ballot in (over 15 elections) since 2018.”
How will the Save Act affect you?
Let’s say you’ve lived and worked in Ohio all your life but decide to move.
To vote, you’d have to re-register in person at your county board of elections and show them your birth certificate or passport. If you have neither, you will be unable to vote.
For Ohioans who’ve changed their name due to marriage or remarriage, it becomes even more difficult to prove your citizenship with a birth certificate.
This will affect Ohio women’s right to vote, since 70% change their name when they marry.
Every person who wants to vote in Ohio for the first time, who moves to Ohio, or who moves within the state will need to have a birth certificate or passport to vote.
In 2023, close to 1.2 million Ohioans moved within or to Ohio. Under the SAVE Act, every one of those Ohioans is considered a non-citizen until they prove otherwise.
Not everyone has or can get access to a birth certificate.
An argument that sinks
A study by the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement showed over 9% of voting-age citizens, or 21.3 million people in the U.S., cannot timely obtain a birth certificate or passport. In fact, only 37% of Ohioans own a U.S. passport.
The argument that too many non-citizens vote holds no water.
In 2024, Secretary LaRose required poll workers to challenge voters whose driver license read “non-citizen.”
Of the 5,851,387 people who cast ballots in 2024, only five alleged non-citizens attempted, but were not able to vote that day. One in a million. Nationwide, the figures are similar.
Kansas legislators tried their own SAVE Act. The 67 non-citizens who registered to vote paled in comparison to the 31,000 Kansans who were denied their right to vote.
Ohioans need Frank LaRose to take a stand
LaRose should focus his attention on what the SAVE Act requires and how this will affect the average Ohioan.
In the past five years in his chief election officer position, LaRose decried costly and non-participatory August elections, then supported an August 2023 election that would have taken Ohioans’ longstanding right to amend our constitution by a majority.
He also voted in favor of unconstitutional gerrymandered Ohio legislative and Congressional districts which diminished the votes of 45% of Ohioans.
Recently, LaRose bowed to the Trump administration and supported an Ohio law which would nullify up to 7,000 legitimate Ohio mail-in ballots received during the four-day grace period after election day.
LaRose can redeem himself by supporting Ohio voters and taking a bold step to speak out against the voter suppressive SAVE Act.
Richard Topper has been a trial attorney in Columbus for 45 years and is actively involved in voting rights efforts.
PERRY TWP., Ohio (WKBN) — The Ohio State Highway Patrol is investigating a Monday morning crash involving a semi-truck that resulted in a woman’s death.
Yolanda Medina Matos, 58, of Campbell, died at the hospital Monday as a result of injuries from a crash around 10 a.m. Monday. The two-vehicle crash happened on state Route 344 at the intersection of Cunningham Road.
A release from authorities states the other driver, a 51-year-old Salem man, was taken to the hospital as a precaution with no apparent injuries.
The release states a car driven by Matos failed to yield at a stop sign at the intersection and was hit by a semi-truck.
In its news release, OSHP reminded drivers of the importance of coming to a complete stop at stop signs and only proceeding through an intersection when it is clear of traffic.
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Antonio Brent, a second grader at St. Peter’s School in Mansfield, has won third place in the 2026 Imagine Engineering Coloring Contest.
Brent’s drawing was selected from a record-breaking 10,269 entries from second graders across Ohio, according to a community announcement. He will be recognized at an awards luncheon June 13 in Columbus.
Brent’s drawing depicts an engineer visiting a construction site. The central figure, wearing personal protective equipment, reviews plans and specifications while a crew works with heavy equipment in the background.
As a third-place winner, Brent will receive a National Geographic Mega Science Lab with 75 STEM experiments.
Imagine Engineering program introduced in 1999
The Imagine Engineering program was founded by the Engineers Foundation of Ohio in 1999. Since then, the Ohio Society of Professional Engineers has enlisted its members to visit local classrooms and explain what engineers do for a living.
The program is designed to help second graders understand what engineering is and how it impacts their everyday lives. It also aims to inspire students to consider careers in engineering by introducing them to real engineers and hands-on experiments.
In 2021, EFO updated the program by adding an educational resource video titled “Imagine Engineering.” The video features Ohio professional engineers who explain engineering at a fundamental level and demonstrate hands-on experiments that support the second-grade curriculum.
In 2023, EFO received a grant from the P&G Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation to expand the program to include Ohio’s Spanish-speaking second graders. The Spanish translation of the video includes a Spanish-speaking engineer to narrate the lesson and subtitles for the experiments.
“Imagine Engineering is a children’s program that is unique to Ohio, having been created by the Engineers Foundation of Ohio in the late 1990s,” EFO President Joe Cherry said in the announcement. “Over the last quarter of a century, Imagine Engineering has helped ignite the imaginations of tens of thousands of children statewide, encouraging them to focus on math and science – and perhaps a career in engineering.”
For more information about the Imagine Engineering program, visit ohioengineer.com.
This story was created with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct.
Miami has moved up in the Rivals Industry national team recruiting rankings.
The Hurricanes added a big piece to the puzzle when Top 100 Dothan (Ala.) High cornerback Ai’King Hall flipped his commitment from Oregon to Miami on Sunday afternoon.
With Hall now in the fold, Miami jumped up one spot from No. 7 to No. 6 in the rankings.
Miami surged past Ohio State and boasts the No. 1 recruiting class in the ACC.
The Hurricanes are less than a point behind No. 5 ranked Notre Dame.
At 5-foot-11, 190 pounds, Hall is ranked as the No. 7 cornerback and No. 39 overall prospect nationally, per Rivals. He is also ranked as the No. 1 overall recruit in the state of Alabama this cycle.
Miami now has 12 commitments in the 2027 recruiting class — Hall, five-star Long Beach (Calif.) Poly cornerback Donte Wright, five-star Miami (Fla.) Carol City wide receiver Nick Lennear, Top 100 Lombard (Ill.) Montini Catholic quarterback Israel Abrams, , Rivals300 Houston (Texas) Langham Creek defensive lineman Ezekiel Ayangbile, Rivals300 Poplarville (Miss.) High running back Ty Keys, Rivals300 Fort Pierce (Fla.) John Carroll offensive lineman Sean Tatum, four-star Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) Cardinal Gibbons tight end Demarcus Deroche, four-star Davie (Fla.) McArthur defensive back Jaylyn Jones, three-star Gainesville (Ga.) High offensive lineman Tyler Ford, three-star Key West (Fla.) High defensive lineman Josh Johnson and three-star Davie (Fla.) McArthur defensive back Sherrod Gourdine.
Miami will have a chance to keep moving up the rankings as it gears up to host several top targets for official visits this summer.
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