The Freedom to Vote Act (FTVA) would expand access to the ballot box for millions of Americans and ensure that all citizens can easily exercise their right to vote, regardless of their ZIP code. At the same time, this transformational voting rights legislation would strengthen election security, improve election administration and campaign finance transparency, and ban partisan gerrymandering.
The FTVA would make voting easier and more secure for 8.7 million voting-age Ohio citizens, including 5.9 million currently registered voters. A new report from the Center for American Progress provides analysis and statistical extrapolations to illustrate how the 2024 and subsequent election cycles would be transformed if the FTVA’s key voting policies had been enacted in 2022, when the legislation was blocked through the use of the filibuster on the U.S. Senate floor.1
Read the full report
Analysis and projections for Ohio, based on previous academic and expert research as well as original research, demonstrate the transformative impact the FTVA could have for voters in the state.
Unless otherwise cited, the author conducted original analysis and created projections primarily based on data published by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission for past federal election cycles. For a comprehensive look at the data analyzed for this fact sheet, see here.
To put some of the below findings into perspective, the 2020 Ohio presidential election was decided by 476,000 voters, and the 2022 Ohio U.S. Senate election was decided by 253,000 voters.2
476,000
voters decided the 2020 Ohio presidential election
253,000
voters decided the 2022 Ohio U.S. Senate election
276,000
additional Ohio voters would likely vote in the 2024 presidential election
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Take Action: Pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act
Automatic voter registration
The FTVA would ensure eligible Ohio citizens can automatically register to vote through the department of motor vehicles.3 Automatic voter registration (AVR) has been shown to be critical not only for registering voters and keeping voter rolls up to date but also for closing racial gaps in voter registration rates. Given the measured impacts that AVR has had in other states:
- Approximately 571,000 voters likely would have newly registered to vote through AVR, including more than 117,000 Black Ohioans and 5,600 Hispanic Ohioans.
- Approximately 1 million already registered voters would have updated their voter registration information using AVR.
- Nearly 276,000 additional Ohio voters would likely cast a ballot in the 2024 general election, including almost 57,000 Black voters and 2,700 Hispanic voters.
Same-day voter registration
The FTVA would ensure eligible Ohio citizens can register to vote at the polls on Election Day and during an early voting period.4 Same-day voter registration (SDR) greatly benefits communities that tend to move more frequently and therefore need to update their voter registration information more often; Hispanic Americans and young Americans are among the demographic populations that move around the most frequently.5 Additionally, SDR helps mitigate issues with inaccurate voter roll purges that often disproportionately affect voters of color.6 The SDR policy in the FTVA would ensure that voters inaccurately removed from the voter rolls are able not only to re-register at the polls but also to cast a nonprovisional ballot.
Across the past three federal election cycles, Hispanic voters in states with SDR had an average voter turnout rate that was 6.6 percentage points higher than that of Hispanic voters in states without SDR; during the last presidential election, it was 4.5 percentage points higher. Additionally, academic experts have found that SDR increases youth voter turnout by between 3.1 percentage points and 7.3 percentage points.7 Given these findings:
- More than 41,000 additional Hispanic voters would likely cast a ballot if voter turnout for Ohio Hispanic voters was at the same rate as for Hispanic voters in states with SDR.
- As many as 77,000 more young Ohioans—those ages 18 to 24—would likely cast a ballot in the 2024 general election.