June 26, 2025
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Late last week, the Ohio State Senate passed Senate Bill 4, which will codify the existing Election Integrity Division into state law as the Election Integrity Unit. The Election Integrity Division, which was introduced in 2022, is currently within the secretary of state’s office. The bill has now been included in the state budget and is at Governor DeWine’s desk for signing. In response, Greer Aeschbury, All Voting is Local Action Ohio’s Senior Campaign Manager, issued the following statement:
“It is clear that the unit is wasting valuable taxpayer dollars while duplicating the work of county prosecutors. These funds would be better spent bolstering the actual efforts of our elections officials to run free and fair elections. Additionally, it further weaponizes lies about our elections to instill distrust in the system. These lies led to an explosion in mass challenges by individual citizens in the 2024 presidential election—in one case, a single person challenged over 16,000 voter registrations in Wood County. The vast majority of these allegations around the state were proven to be unfounded, but they required an incredible amount of staff time during a very busy election season.
“What’s also alarming is that the Election Integrity Unit can be used as a tool of intimidation against voters and has the potential to create barriers to the ballot box. It is for these reasons that All Voting is Local Action Ohio is asking Governor DeWine to line-item veto this wasteful, unnecessary part of the proposed budget bill.”