Ohioans for Healthy Families, the 229-member coalition of organizations trying to bring paid sick days to the 2.2 million Ohio workers without them, has submitted over 240,000 voter signatures in support of the measure to Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

To place the issue on the November ballot, the Coalition needed to submit at least 120,683 valid signatures by August 6, as well as meet specific numbers in at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties. The Coalition says it has met the target numbers in at least 66 counties.

Once the requisite number of signatures has been validated by the Secretary of State, the Ohio Healthy Families Act will appear on the fall ballot and be voted up or down. Public opinion polls conducted by the Columbus Dispatch, Quinnipiac University and others have consistently found over 70% support for the measure across party lines.

At a news conference, Ohioans for Healthy Families also previewed its first television ad and said that a “multi-million dollar state-wide t.v. buy” would be supplemented by a state-wide radio campaign as well. For strategic reasons, the Coalition declined to specify precisely when or in what markets the ad will initially air.

Said Coalition communications director Dale Butland, “When over 275,000 Ohio voters signed their names to the paid sick day petition last December, we hoped the General Assembly would honor the wishes of the people who elected them and pass the law themselves. But the House and Senate leadership turned their backs on the people and climbed into bed with the CEOs and corporate lobbyists who always oppose measures designed to treat middle class workers and families fairly.”

“Now that more than another 240,000 Ohio voters have signed petitions, well over half a million Ohioans have made their voices heard. They don’t want to lose a job or a paycheck simply because they or their children get sick. They don’t understand why they should be denied what workers in every other industrialized country in the world already have. And they’re not buying the scare tactics or the hypocrisy of executives and politicians who all have paid sick days themselves, but say they’re too expensive for regular people. Ohioans believe in family values. And this November, they’ll be able to prove it by voting for a law that values families.”