Ohio secretary of state moves to make election data more transparent, available to voters

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has announced legislation to standardize the organization, storage and sharing of election data across the state – in an attempt to make the information more transparent to the public.

The Data Analysis Transparency Archive Act is sponsored by GOP state Sen. Theresa Gavarone and would create standard definitions of election data points, require that the data be transferred from county election boards to a new state Office of Data Analytics and Archives.

The legislation, if enacted, also would allow the office to analyze, organize, and publish the information online, according to the Associated Press.

The former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell praised his predecessor for this legislation. 

"It must be transparent and it must be well balanced in a bipartisan sense," Blackwell told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "Frank is on the right path. Our work is never done."

The language used in the measure was derived from a collabortion with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Data Lab and the America First Policy Institute. 

"It's a question of, 'Do we even all speak the same language about what constitutes a registered voter, what constitutes a voted ballot?'" LaRose said during a news conference. "All of these kinds of things are various, not only across Ohio's 88 counties, but across the 50 states, and the really thousands of jurisdictions that conduct elections in this country."

Election integrity is a top priority for Republicans, after numerous concerns about the integrity of the U.S. election system were raised during the 2020 presidential election.