A second transgender candidate running for the majority Republican Ohio House could be disqualified from the ballot after omitting her former name on circulating petitions.

A second transgender candidate running for a seat in the Republican-majority Ohio House is at risk of being disqualified from the ballot after omitting her former name on circulating petitions.

The Mercer County Board of Elections is set to vote Thursday on whether Arienne Childrey, a Democrat from Auglaize County and one of four transgender individuals campaigning for the Legislature, is eligible to run after not disclosing her previous name, also known as her deadname, on her petition paperwork.

A little-used Ohio elections law, unfamiliar even to many state elections officials, mandates that candidates disclose any name changes in the last five years on their petitions paperwork, with exemptions for name changes due to marriage. But the law isn’t listed in the 33-page candidate requirement guide and there is no space on the petition paperwork to list any former names.

  • @Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de
    5•10 months ago

    The crux of your argument about “make sure you didn’t get into any controversy” is baked into the name change process…

    A legal name change in the U.S. for any reason other than marriage or divorce typically requires several steps. First, the applicant must file paperwork that includes the reason for the name change and pay filing fees that can be hundreds of dollars. Then the applicant attends a court hearing where they may need to defend the reasons for their name change. If they are granted a court order for a name change, they will need to go through name change processes for other documents such as driver’s licenses and birth certificates, which require additional fees. Many states also require that the applicant pay to publish their name change in the newspaper, with some states requiring multiple publications.

    https://uclawreview.org/2021/10/01/name-changes-do-we-need-judicial-discretion/

    Ohio in particular is one such a state that requires you to publish the name change in the newspaper

    https://www.ohiolegalhelp.org/topic/name-change

    • 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍
      3•10 months ago

      I had to go through this in NY, it sounds like roughly the same process. It’s the biggest pain in the ass and ended up costing around $600 or so?

      That was almost a decade and like six apartments ago, and I still get spam sent to me under my dead name in the mail

    • @derf82@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1•10 months ago

      Because so many read and have free access to search old legal notices in newspapers.

      If you want to argue name changes are public, they should be placed in a publicly searchable database.