Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has unveiled a new election history data dashboard, enhancing governmental transparency and making it easier for residents to review past election results and voting patterns without having to navigate complex data files, according to a press release from the Ohio Secretary of State's office.
The dashboard comes on the heels of the 2022 DATA Act, legislation which established an Office of Data Analytics and Archives under the Secretary of State’s office, aiming to up the ante on keeping and showing off electronic election data this initiative has placed Ohio at the forefront of archiving and providing public access to such records, as LaRose pointed out saying through Ohio Secretary of State's Office, "You shouldn’t have to dig through piles of complicated spreadsheets to be a well-informed citizen," he said that election integrity starts with transparency and before he took office there was no legal bind to preserve electronic election data, but they've "passed historic legislation to fix that, and Ohio now leads the nation in archiving and disclosing our voting records."
The tool doesn’t stop at summarizing state-level info, it drills down to details from each of Ohio's 88 counties dating back to the 2016 primary election, with every certified election result to date pushing an update to the dashboard's display, signaling a move toward data-driven overhauls aiming to make government workings more digestible and accessible to the public.
Ohio's initiative in creating such digital platforms for information-sharing magnifies its commitment to transparency in an era where the clamor for open governance echoes with growing insistence, it doesn't merely serve as a static repository, but rather as a dynamic resource that refreshes with the certification of election results by both the Ohio Secretary of State and the state's 88 county boards of elections and such continuous updates ensure the dashboard serves as a live reflection of the democratic process. Public access to these archives could be a powerful tool for journalists, researchers, and ordinary citizens seeking to gain insights or spark discussion on Ohio's political landscape and voting behavior.
