On June 10, Ohio Secretary of State John Husted issued a directive to Ohio county election boards. The directive forbids them from checking petition validity before the entire petition has been submitted. This is unfortunate, because Ohio petition validity in invariably very low, for initiative proponents, new parties, and candidates alike. Many states will check petitions on a flow basis, so that petitioning groups know how well they are doing, and need not be in such suspense.

Some Ohio county election boards had been doing these kinds of checks, but they were unofficial. The directive says if the practice continues, the official validity checks might be different than the unofficial checks. But there is an easy solution for that problem; just tell petitioning groups that the preliminary check isn’t necessarily final. The information would still be useful. Thanks to Anthony Davis for the link.