Elect Allison Russo as secretary of state

State Rep. Allison Russo is the best choice to replace term-limited Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican. Russo, D-Upper Arlington, would bring a deep knowledge of election policy to the role thanks to her eight years in the legislature, which included serving as House minority leader. She also served on the Ohio Redistricting Commission. It was from those perches that she had a close-up view of the partisanship that has consumed Ohio election policy under LaRose, a Republican now running for state auditor. LaRose too often contorted himself to advance partisan ends in a job that, while subject to a partisan election, demands an even hand. For example, the secretary of state serves on the Ohio Ballot Board, and LaRose used his position there to manipulate the language voters saw on their ballots for several statewide issues to try to achieve the GOP's preferred outcome. His efforts failed in 2023 when he sought to spin a Republican-backed constitutional amendment that would have made it harder for voters to amend the state Constitution in future elections. (Republicans wanted to make it harder to pass an amendment intended to protect reproductive rights, including abortion. That amendment passed a few months later.) He was more successful in 2024, when the approved description of a proposed anti-gerrymandering amendment helped persuade voters to reject the idea. (LaRose should know better than most just how broken Ohio's redistricting process is since, as a member of the Redistricting Commission, he was deeply involved in Republican gerrymandering efforts.) The Ballot Board's goal, Russo told us, should be to "create a description that is fair and let the voters decide." In separate endorsement interviews both Russo and her Republican opponent, state Treasurer Robert Sprague, told us they believed that the secretary of state should act in a nonpartisan fashion. (Also in the race is Libertarian Tom Pruss, 59, whom we did not interview.) "I don't view my role as being a partisan cheerleader," Sprague said of how he would operate as secretary of state. We have found Sprague, although politically conservative, to be a highly effective and nonpartisan state treasurer, a role we've twice endorsed him for in general elections. However, during the current campaign, we've seen him run to the right on various election issues, including expressing support for banning ballot drop boxes, a convenient and secure way for voters to return absentee ballots. To his credit, during our interview, Sprague acknowledged that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, but he didn't seem interested in discussing it further. We had the sense that Sprague would rather look forward than look backward, but that's hard to do when President Donald Trump won't stop pushing his false claims that he was the true winner six years ago. Unfortunately, Sprague has proved distressingly interested in measures that would make voting harder in the name of protecting against voter fraud, which is exceedingly rare. Sprague, 53, told us that he favored citizenship checks for voters and more stringent ID requirements for voters who use mail-in ballots. He did tell us that if elected he would create a program to help citizens having a hard time getting the necessary paperwork to pass a citizenship check. It's a worthwhile idea that whoever wins the race should pursue if only because the issue is unlikely to go away. (It's illegal for noncitizens to vote in Ohio elections, and examples of noncitizens voting are few and far between in Ohio and elsewhere in the country.) Russo, 50, rightly recognized that the more requirements there are to register to vote or even to cast a ballot, the harder it becomes for many otherwise eligible voters to cast a ballot. She also noted, as LaRose, who also favors more voting restrictions, often says, that Ohio is the "gold standard model" for elections. That's because Ohio elections are separately administered on a bipartisan basis by local election officials in all of Ohio's 88 counties. That's borne out in post-election audit numbers, which routinely show that Ohio election results are 99.9 percent accurate, something LaRose rightly crows about after every election. Sprague agreed that Ohio does a good job administering elections, but he said there's room for improvement. We also share Russo's concerns that LaRose handed over sensitive date on Ohio voters to the Trump administration as part of its overreaching efforts to federalize elections. (The Constitution places the responsibility of running elections squarely in the hands of the states, not the federal government.) We also like Russo's idea of a program that would encourage younger people to register to vote before they graduate high school. She told us that only about a quarter of all 18-year-olds in Ohio are registered to vote. That's far too low, and the secretary of state should be working to get more people, regardless of their age, registered. While we believe Sprague could do the job well, we can't shake our concerns that he would be more partisan in executing his responsibilities. On the other hand, Russo told us that "the job of the secretary of state is to keep voters front and center." We believe she would do exactly that while keeping Ohio's elections free, fair and secure, and therefore we endorse her to be Ohio's next secretary of state.