Trans candidate disqualified from running for Ohio House seat

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — A decades-old Ohio law has disqualified a transgender candidate from running for a seat in the state’s House of Representatives.

Vanessa Joy, from Stark County in northeast Ohio, was set to be on the ballot to run for a seat representing her district. While she submitted the required signatures and met the filing deadlines, a name change in 2022 voided Joy’s effort.

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“A can of worms has been opened and unfortunately I find myself at the center of it,” Joy said. “This unknown law that came out of nowhere is what disqualified me.”

The Stark County Board of Elections have not responded to NBC4’s request for comment.

Under Ohio’s revised code, a person who wants to be a candidate, who changes their name within five years of their filing, must circulate petitions with the current name and their former name. However, Joy noted that the petition forms have no space for a former name.

“This law surprised everybody,” Joy said. “But it exists.”

A few exceptions are built into the measure. For example, the law does not apply to a change of name by reason of marriage, or to a candidate who has once complied with the law and who has previously been elected.

“With the trans community, this law is unintentionally discriminatory against us,” Joy said.

Joy said she agrees with “the spirit of the law,” and can see how it might prevent bad players from running for office and deceiving voters. Still, she said for members of the trans community, listing a former, or “dead” name can be traumatic.

“Our dead names are just that — they’re dead. They’re things that are gone and buried,” she said. “It’s like somebody bringing up your kid that has been killed in a horrible violent way and talking about it all the time.”

Joy said she likely would’ve listed her dead name anyways.

“I wanted to get elected, I wanted to break the Republican supermajority, or at least have a chance of doing it,” she said. “I decided to run for office in order to push back against this horrible vitriol that the Republican Party is spewing at [the transgender community].”

Joy said she hopes the law will change to create an exception for the transgender community or become clearer in candidate filing rules.

A 33-page Ohio candidate requirement guide outline rules for those who wish to run, but does not directly list the name-change law. Instead, the guide links to a 14-page document that states, “for additional information on rules governing petitions, please see chapter 13 of the Ohio Election Official Manual.” The manual has the rule written three pages down.

“But it doesn’t name the actual law and it doesn’t name the repercussions, which are quite severe,” Joy said.

Ether way, the law is being applied unevenly, Hoy said.

“I was disqualified when others weren’t,” she said. “The problem with it being, from what I understand, many of the Ohio boards of election do not know about this law.”

Joy said her battle with this issue does not end here. She said she is going to contest the decision.

“Based on the fact that the law was applied unevenly, and it was not communicated to me at all,” she said.

In the meantime, another law stops her from running as a write-in candidate. So, Joy does not believe she will be running in her district’s upcoming election, leaving Republican candidate uncontested.

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