{"id":205957,"date":"2026-05-17T20:31:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T01:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=205957"},"modified":"2026-05-17T20:31:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T01:31:07","slug":"group-may-not-get-enough-signatures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/05\/17\/group-may-not-get-enough-signatures\/","title":{"rendered":"Group may not get enough signatures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Nick Evans\/<\/strong>Ohio Capital Journal<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organizers leading an effort to abolish Ohio property taxes are coming to a crossroads. By July 1, the campaign needs to decide if it wants to roll the dice and attempt to get on this year\u2019s ballot or keep its powder dry and wait for another election down the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, Ax Ohio Tax President Brian Massie announced they\u2019ve collected 305,000 signatures so far. That puts them on track to clear the statutory minimum for the ballot, but doesn\u2019t account for rejections. To feel confident, the campaign really wants at least 620,000 signatures for their submission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019re not on track for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organizers can keep gathering signatures for as long as they want. Once they submit them, though, that\u2019s pretty much it. If the campaign falls short there\u2019s a brief, 10-day window to make up the difference. If they can\u2019t, any subsequent effort to make the ballot would have to start over from square one.<\/p>\n\n\n

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More than 300,000 people have signed Ax Ohio Tax petitions but with the deadline fast approaching, it may not be enough. Nick Evans photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cI want the citizens of Ohio to hear this,\u201d Massie said. \u201cThey can rest assured that we will not stop until we get this amendment on the ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the campaign will announce its plans sometime in the middle of June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Common Cause Ohio Executive Director Catherine Turcer sees citizen-initiated ballot measures as a central part of our democracy, and she\u2019s been personally involved in several initiative campaigns. While Turcer acknowledged it can be \u201cchallenging\u201d to wish the anti-tax campaign well, she said the point of direct democracy is that\u2019s it\u2019s open to everybody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there are some factors working in the campaign\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are going into really good signature gathering weather,\u201d Turcer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going into farmers markets and parades, Memorial Day weekend,\u201d she rattled off. \u201cI mean, you can start to think about the different festivals and different ways that people are out and about outside, which makes signature collection easier than, say, January.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their signature total puts them in \u201cdecent shape,\u201d Turcer said. It also doesn\u2019t hurt that the pitch is straightforward: do you want to keep your property taxes or get rid of them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

But the campaign faces significant challenges, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every ballot measure sees a vast number of signatures rejected over clerical errors, Turcer said. Information could be illegible or incorrect. Petition circulators could mix up signatures from multiple counties, potentially spoiling otherwise valid signatures. And the process of physically scanning all those documents for submission takes a really long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn many ways, this is about, can I submit the appropriate paperwork in a really specific way, in a way I have never done before?\u201d she said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s easy to get caught up in the hurdles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more, the petitions themselves have a kind of shelf life. When elections officials go to validate signatures they\u2019re comparing the petition to current information \u2014 not whatever was current at the moment the signature was made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good kind of rule of thumb,\u201d Turcer said, \u201c(to) say 20%, 25% of the signatures that we collected a year ago could no longer reflect where the voter now lives, and so they will not count in the total.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that means there are risks in submitting this year, and risks in waiting until next year, too. Turcer said only the campaign knows the quality of the signatures they\u2019ve collected so far, and she\u2019d be shooting for a similar threshold to the one the Ax Ohio Tax campaign has in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turcer could imagine going forward with less of a cushion \u2014 but not much less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt least over 600 (thousand),\u201d Turcer said, as the absolute minimum she\u2019d be willing to submit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About a week after Massie\u2019s announcement, Les Carrier joined a handful of other organizers to gather signatures at a community event in Hilliard. The former city councilman called out passersby by name and had a minute to chat with every one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carrier seemed energized by Massie\u2019s update. Three hundred thousand signatures isn\u2019t halfway from their goal, it\u2019s halfway there. He used terms like \u201cskyrocketing\u201d or \u201csnowballing\u201d to describe interest in the campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To him, the math is pretty simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA $160,000 home in Old Hilliard now is worth $300 (thousand),\u201d Carrier said. \u201cTheir taxes have doubled. Their income hasn\u2019t. So, I mean, something\u2019s got to give.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Counterintuitively, he said enthusiasm began growing after Gov. DeWine\u2019s administration warned eliminating the roughly $24 billion property taxes generates each year would lead to dramatic increases in sales or income taxes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carrier downplayed the loss in revenue \u2014 \u201cChicken Little is what I called it\u201d \u2014 and said making up the difference would be simpler and fairer with consumption taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverybody consumes at a certain level, everybody pays, and it broadens the tax base from which everything\u2019s drawn,\u201d Carrier said. In contrast, with property taxes, \u201cwhat you\u2019ve done is you\u2019ve narrowed it down to those that have worked to build up equity and build up home valuation, and now they\u2019re being punished for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumption taxes, like sales or value-added taxes, are regressive, meaning they fall more heavily on those with lower incomes because those households spend a greater share of their income to get by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And although Carrier thinks the solution is simple, that doesn\u2019t mean everyone is on board. Massie, for instance, was blunt about his plans for replacing revenue. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to,\u201d he said, insisting instead that lawmakers need to cut spending, and \u201cstart a DOGE\u201d in Ohio, referring to Elon Musk\u2019s failed federal cost-cutting effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carrier remains optimistic about the campaign\u2019s chances of making the ballot this year, but he has no problem with waiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think we could make it for this year,\u201d Carrier said. \u201cBut my personal opinion, I haven\u2019t talked to Brian (Massie) about it yet, is if we don\u2019t make 600 (thousand), we just keep on charging into next year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrea Beeson and Suzi Remick signed the petition after speaking to Carrier, and both expressed concerns about property taxes pushing people out of their homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel bad for the aging people,\u201d Remick said. \u201cIf they have to lose their homes, that would be horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohio farms get a significant property tax break because their valuation is based on agricultural use, but Beeson still worries about farmers near her home in Madison County getting priced out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho do they sell to? Developers that can pay more than another farmer,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd now we\u2019re getting houses and houses and houses and our schools can\u2019t hold them all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beeson and Remick said they\u2019re still weighing whether it\u2019s a good idea to abolish property taxes. They signed the petition because they want to give the campaign a chance to convince them and then have the chance to decide if and when the measure appears on the ballot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now, they don\u2019t know how it would work, where the money would come from for schools and everything else,\u201d Beeson said. \u201cI want that option, and I want to see how they would do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nick Evans\/Ohio Capital Journal The organizers leading an effort to abolish Ohio property taxes are coming to a crossroads. By July 1, the campaign needs to decide if it wants to roll the dice and attempt to get on this year\u2019s ballot or keep its powder dry and wait for another election down the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 00:15:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205959,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205957\/revisions\/205959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}