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Election officials are keeping Ohio results safe from fraud

Despite repeated attempts by others to instill fear that Ohio’s elections are riddled with fraud, interference and illegal ballots cast, the public official best equipped to accurately assess the situation, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, has said, “voter fraud is rare in Ohio.” An analysis of data from the Ohio Crime Statistics Dashboard by the Ohio Capital Journal bears that out. Since taking office in 2019, LaRose has referred for investigation 1,200 voting/election-related cases. According to the crime statistics dashboard, only 16 resulted in felony convictions — ...

Harassment and assault of sports officials cannot be tolerated

Refereeing isn’t supposed to be dangerous. But those who (often volunteer to) do so are increasingly facing dangers to their mental health and well-being AND their physical health while they are trying to do their jobs for our kids. During a Steubenville-New Philadelphia boys soccer game this week, an official was injured so badly he had to be hospitalized. Video evidence shows a Steubenville player who may have been reacting to a red card being given to a teammate charging at the official, knocking him to the ground. According to published reports, the referee suffered a collapsed ...

Ohio has some work ahead to avoid looking foolish in book bans

School book ban trends come and go, but there are always groups of people who want to keep their children from having access to reading material that might expose them to new ideas or, worse, ask questions. The problem is particularly bad in Ohio, which ranks third among the states in PEN America’s study of school book bans for the 2025-26 school year. The free-expression advocacy group counted 117 instances of school book bans in the Buckeye State during that period. Only Texas and Florida were worse. Across the country, 11,982 books — 7,370 unique titles — were banned in public ...

Ohio lawmakers owe it to taxpayers to address EdChoice

Lawmakers who never bothered to complete the phase-in of Ohio’s Fair School Funding Plan, or update data that could have helped more equitably fund the state’s public schools, are now also operating with the knowledge that their beloved EdChoice voucher program has been deemed unconstitutional by an appellate court. (Interim state Attorney General Andy Wilson has already said he plans to appeal that ruling to the 6-1 Republican majority Ohio Supreme Court.) If their consciences weren’t already being prodded by the knowledge that they abandoned fair school funding, and that an ...

EdChoice voucher ruling provides chance to address school funding

Thursday’s ruling by the Ohio 10th District Court of Appeals that the state’s EdChoice voucher program is unconstitutional will no doubt ruffle some feathers in Columbus. Good. Judge David Leland, who wrote the opinion for the three-judge panel, says the program violates the state constitution because it funds a separate school system, according to a report by The Blade, in Toledo. That violates the mandate for a SINGULAR public education system. It was the panel’s opinion that the voucher program also lacks meaningful state oversight, is unavailable to many rural Ohioans ...

Guidelines monitoring Ohio’s Medicaid need continuous enforcement

A recent review of Ohio’s Medicaid enrollment by state Auditor Keith Faber’s office found plenty of people enrolled who should not be receiving benefits – and it is not perhaps the group of people some low-aiming politicians hope you would expect. According to a report by The Center Square, the audit found 3% of Buckeye State residents receiving Medicaid benefits have more resources than allowed. In fact, “several” of those people are millionaires. Further, Faber’s office reported more than 3,000 people receiving state Medicaid benefits are dead. Ohio spends approximately ...