Columbus- Today Lucas County Board of Elections validated 57,442 signatures to Repeal SB 5, the unfair attack on employee rights and worker safety. Only 4,342 signatures were required to meet 3% of the total vote in the last gubernatorial election in Lucas County. According to this information from the Lucas County Board of Elections, We Are Ohio has received enough signatures in Lucas County to place the citizen’s veto on the November 8th, 2011 ballot.

“The historic number of signatures collected shows the broad-based enthusiasm behind repealing SB 5”, said Melissa Fazekas, spokeswoman for We Are Ohio. “Nearly 1.3 million Ohioans signed petitions to show their support for stopping the attack on working families. They understand that SB 5 goes too far and that the extreme politicians who supported SB 5 also exempted themselves from the bill. It is clear to many Ohioans that firefighters, police officers, teachers and nurses are not the enemy. We Are Ohio and our more than 10,000 volunteers sincerely appreciate the hard work of all the county board of elections officials and we look forward to receiving official ballot placement from the Ohio Secretary of State.”

On June 29th, thousands of volunteers with We Are Ohio marched in downtown Columbus to the Ohio Secretary of State office to deliver 1,298,301 signatures to repeal SB 5. We Are Ohio volunteers collected more signatures than any other petition drive in Ohio history. The citizen-driven petition drive exceeded the 3% threshold and collected at least 6%, or double the amount required by Ohio law in all 88 counties.

We Are Ohio is a citizen-driven, community-based, bipartisan coalition that has come together to repeal SB 5, the unfair attack on employee rights and worker safety. We Are Ohio includes public and private sector workers and employees, police officers, firefighters, teachers, nurses, pastors, small business owners, Republicans and Democrats, local elected officials and business leaders, students, Moms, Dads, family members, and your neighbors.

We Are Ohio Petition Quick Facts:

·More than 10,000 volunteers

·1,298,391 total signatures collected

·1502 boxes delivered

·48 foot long semi-truck delivered all the 1502 boxes

·More than 6200 people participated in the People’s Parade/Million Signature March

·Petitions weighed more than 25 tons

·Structural engineer needed to determine if flooring was strong enough to hold the petitions in the Secretary of State building

We Are Ohio website.

Admin addition: 89,610 signatures were collected in Lucas County.