Drum Roll, Please: Record 1.3 Million Signatures Collected in Ohio

Petition Drive's Success Will Let Voters Decide Fate of Anti-Union Law

CWA members and thousands of other Ohio volunteers made history as they delivered nearly 1.3 million petition signatures Wednesday to put a repeal of the state's anti-collective bargaining law on November's ballot.

They called it the "Million Signature March," but 1.3 million would be more accurate.

The final, stunning number of petition signatures that a lively parade of Ohioans delivered Wednesday to their secretary of state's office was, to be precise, 1,298,301.

As bagpipes, drums, motorcycles and retired fire trucks escorted more than 6,000 marchers through Columbus, a 48-foot semi-truck hauled the petitions in 1,502 boxes.

Click here to see video of the huge march through Columbus.

The petition drive began in April, after Gov. John Kasich signed the now-infamous Senate Bill 5, a Republican-passed measure to strip collective bargaining rights from Ohio's public employees.

CWA members and thousands of other volunteers set a challenging goal: Collect 450,000 signatures to ensure they'd have 231,000 valid names, enough to put a repeal of SB 5 on November's ballot.

Because the petitions were filed on time — one day before the June 30 deadline — Senate Bill 5 cannot take effect on Friday, as scheduled. The next step is for the secretary of state's office to verify, by July 26, that there are 231,149 valid signatures of registered Ohio voters among the 1.3 million who signed. The referendum would then go to voters Nov. 8.

The demonstrators, the volunteers who collected signatures, and the million-plus Ohioans who signed represent a broad swath of the state, including many citizens who identified themselves as Republicans fed up with their party's anti-worker agenda.

"The unprecedented show of support to get this citizen veto on the ballot was the result of a massive non-partisan grassroots effort," CWA District 4 Vice President Seth Rosen said. "As proud as we are of this result, we have a lot of work to do to ensure that this attack on workers' rights is rejected by the voters on November 8th. I'm confident that we will do what needs to be done to keep building this movement in Ohio."

Rosen and CWA helped found one of the major coalitions that is fighting SB 5 and other attacks on working families," Stand Up for Ohio: Good Jobs and Strong Communities." The coalition is helping citizens understand the link between the attack on workers' rights, its effect on good jobs and the consequences to quality of life issues.

The phenomenal success of the petition drive suggests activists are getting their point across: The nearly 1.3 million signatures crushes the previous record in Ohio — nearly 813,000 signatures for a casino-related ballot measure in 2008.