Backers of Ohio abortion amendment prepare to submit petitions for November ballot

Advocates for reproductive rights spent the weekend making their last big push collecting petition signatures. The coalition must turn in 414,000 valid signatures to the Ohio Secretary of State’s office by July 5 to get an abortion rights issue before voters this fall.

On Monday, volunteers processed petitions collected over the weekend at a community festival in downtown Columbus.

When the petitions came into the office, volunteers separated them into groups. It's part of the process of making sure petitions are accounted for and valid, said Gabe Mann with Pro-Choice Ohio.

“We are dividing them up by county. We are making sure to register them in our own tracker — which petitions came from which counties — and keeping track of those. We are separating them out and then they are getting sent off to a separate group doing quality control. We want to make sure everything is being done by the book, and we are meeting all of the different requirements,” Mann said.