(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today rejected the petition for the proposed “Bottle Bill for Ohio” because the petitioners did not submit the minimum valid signatures required.
On March 17th, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office received a written petition from the petitioners to amend the Ohio Revised code by initiated statute. The single submitted petition had two deficiencies which mandate the petition’s rejection. First, the petition lacked a signed circulator statement as required by law. Second, the single petition contained signatures from residents of 18 counties, instead of the required submission of part-petitions which only contain signatures from one county on each part-petition.
“Because of these two fatal errors, you did not submit the required 1,000 valid signatures from registered Ohio electors.” DeWine stated in his letter rejecting the petition. “As a result, I am unable to proceed to a determination on whether the summary you submitted is a fair and truthful summation of the matter you submitted.”
The full text of today’s letter and of the initiative petitions submitted can be found at www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov/BallotInitiatives.
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