Transgender Ohio House candidate fails to make ballot for not listing former name

A transgender woman running for the Ohio House was rejected from the ballot for not listing her former name.

Vanessa Joy was the only Democrat seeking the Ohio House 50th District seat, which forms a U-shape in Stark County and includes Canal Fulton, East Canton, Massillon and Minerva.

Joy had enough valid signatures to qualify. Problem was, Stark County's four-member Board of Elections found a flaw in her petitions because she legally changed her name in 2022 and did not include her former name on the petitions she'd circulated, as required by law.

Joy said she didn't know she had to include her former name. State law requires anyone who's changed names during the past five years — for almost any reason — to include his or her former name on petitions.

"That's annoying ... obviously they got me on that," she said by phone.

Joy said she'll reach out to members of the state's House Democratic Caucus for advice. By law, non-certified candidates have until Friday to appeal the board's decision.

In an interview with statehouse reporter Morgan Trau of ABC 5 in Cleveland, Joy said she would "have had to have my dead name on my petitions."

Channel 5 is The Canton Repository's Cleveland TV partner.

"But in the trans community, our dead names are dead; there's a reason it's dead — that is a dead person who is gone and buried," Joy said.

With Joy out of the 50th House race, Republican Matthew Kishman stands to win in the fall, unless a write-in candidate enters the fray. The 50th District incumbent, Reggie Stoltzfus, R-Paris Township, opted to run for Congress.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Trans Ohio House candidate fails to make ballot for not listing birth name