Plaintiffs Red Wine & Blue and the Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans filed suit against Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Registrar of Motor Vehicles Charles Norman in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, challenging a provision in the 2025 Transportation Appropriations Bill (HB 54) that requires individuals applying for or renewing a driver’s license at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to present unspecified “proof of United States citizenship” before being offered the opportunity to register to vote. The complaint alleges that this proof-of-citizenship requirement violates Sections 5 and 8 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which allow only the “minimum information necessary” to assess voter eligibility and preempt state laws that impose additional documentation requirements beyond a sworn attestation of citizenship under penalty of perjury, as well as the First and Fourteenth Amendments because the statute is impermissibly vague and invites arbitrary enforcement. Plaintiffs contend that the law unlawfully restricts the right to vote, disproportionately burdens women, older voters, and students who may lack immediate access to documents like passports or birth certificates, and conflicts with longstanding federal and Ohio practices allowing voter registration based solely on attestation. The complaint further argues that Ohio’s legislature added the nine-line amendment to HB 54 without hearings or justification, despite no evidence of significant noncitizen voting in Ohio—citing the Secretary of State’s own investigations yielding only a handful of prosecutions out of millions of votes cast. Both organizations allege the law undermines their missions to promote civic participation and forces them to divert resources to help members overcome these new barriers. The plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief barring enforcement of HB 54’s proof-of-citizenship provision, as well as attorneys’ fees and any other appropriate remedies.
