What's on Columbus Voters' Ballots This November
Columbus voters head to the polls on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, and while there's no mayoral or City Council race on this year's ballot, residents will still decide two significant questions about how city government itself is structured — plus a handful of neighborhood-level liquor permit questions and one statewide measure that will appear on every ballot in the city.
Two competing charter amendments on City Council's future
The biggest local decision facing Columbus voters is a pair of charter amendments that would reshape how City Council is elected. Both were placed on the ballot by a council vote on August 25, 2026, and both ask essentially the same core question — should council members be elected only by the voters in their own district, rather than citywide as they are now — but they differ in scope.
Proposed Charter Amendment No. 1, City Council District Elections, began as a citizen petition from the Our City, Our Say coalition. Organizers say more than 250 volunteers collected over 23,000 signatures, which the Franklin County Board of Elections certified in July as more than sufficient to force a public vote. Under current rules, all nine council members represent a numbered district but are elected by the entire city; Amendment 1 would end that citywide voting for district seats, letting only the residents of a district elect — and recall — their own representative. Council would stay at nine members.
Proposed Charter Amendment No. 2, City Council At-Large Complement, is council's own competing measure, introduced by Council President Shannon Hardin and Councilmember Rob Dorans. It includes everything in Amendment 1 but goes further: two new at-large, citywide council seats would be added starting with the 2027 election, and two more in 2029, growing council from nine members to 13. It also calls for the current district map to be redrawn by a citizen-led districting commission, a process expected to run through the 2029 election, and sets signature requirements for future candidates — 150 signatures from within a district for a district seat, 250 citywide signatures for an at-large run.
Council has formally determined the two measures don't conflict, meaning both could take effect if voters approve both — Amendment 2 was written to fully incorporate Amendment 1's district-only voting provision. Each appears on the ballot as its own separate yes-or-no question.
A levy that didn't make it
Not every proposal made the cut. Columbus State Community College's Board of Trustees considered placing a $95 million property tax levy on the November ballot that would have made tuition free for new Franklin County high school graduates, an expansion of the existing Columbus Promise program. The board postponed a vote in late July and ultimately announced it would not pursue the measure in 2026, leaving the future of free-tuition funding for Central Ohio students unresolved for now.
Local liquor permit questions
Voters in several specific Columbus precincts will also decide narrow, address-specific liquor permit questions — known as local options — that only appear on the ballots of registered voters living near the businesses in question. This cycle's list includes weekday and Sunday sales questions for businesses including Neubite LLC (dba Avenue) on Mt. Vernon Avenue, the Dublin & Grandview Dutchess on Dublin Road, Born on Third on Trabue Road, the Morse Road Duchess, Third Way Café on West Broad Street, a RaceTrac location on Rathmell Road, the East Broad Street Duchess, and a Convenient Plus Food Mart on East Livingston Avenue.
The statewide measure on every Columbus ballot
Every Columbus voter will also see Issue 3, a state constitutional amendment that would make Ohio's existing voter photo ID law harder to change or repeal in the future without another statewide vote. A state ballot board approved the measure's language in early August in a bipartisan 4-1 vote.
What's not on the ballot this year
Columbus residents should note that neither the mayor's office nor City Council seats are up for election in 2026 — council members are serving four-year terms following the 2025 election, and Mayor Andrew Ginther's current term runs through the end of 2027. Columbus's next citywide election for those offices is expected in 2027.
Key dates
Franklin County's voter registration deadline for the November election is October 5, 2026. Early in-person voting begins October 8 and runs through November 2 at the Franklin County Board of Elections, 1700 Morse Road. Polls on Election Day, November 3, are open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Source / more info: Franklin County Board of Elections — https://vote.franklincountyohio.gov/election-info/2026