A transgender woman running for an Ohio House seat has been disqualified for failing to disclose her former name on petitions circulated to voters, in violation of a seldom-enforced state law.
Local election officials informed Vanessa Joy, who hoped to run as a Democrat for Ohio House District 50, that she was not eligible to do so, despite having collected the signatures necessary to run.
Joy sought to run in a firmly Republican district covering Stark County, just south of Akron.
The first approach should be to make sure the law is applied equally. If it exempts marriage, then there’s a good chance it is being applied “equally”, if there’s no other candidate it applies to
THEN you might argue the law is invalid because it’s discriminatory…. If there’s no other candidate it applies to, then you should have a good case to invalidate the law. You probably won’t help in time for an upcoming though