A coalition of voting rights groups in Ohio Wednesday urged lawmakers and statewide officeholders to adopt new reforms including automated voter registration, increased voting opportunities and improvements to the online voter registration system.

The groups said Ohio has made some improvements to give voters access to the ballot, but said it can do much more.

Mike Brickner, the state director of All Voting is Local Ohio, said Ohio is still lagging behind other states, citing the Election Performance Index by Pew Charitable Trusts that rates states on items such as voter turnout, the number of absentee and overseas ballots rejected, online tools available to help citizens to find information on their elections and more.

In addition to automatic voter registration that would occur whenever a citizen interacts with a government agency, the Ohio Voter Rights Coalition also is calling for expanding the number of early voting locations, extending weekend and early voting times, and improving the online voter registration by making it more user friendly for third party voter registration groups.

Brickner said working with third party voter registration groups is something other states are already doing. Under those systems, the groups get a copy of the voter registration when it is filed so that the groups can follow up with the voter and make sure they get out to the polls. Brickner said groups do not have access to the actual voter registration database under the proposal.

Voter registration groups currently submit paper copies of registration, which the coalition said is less accurate than using the online voter registration form but allows the groups to be able to track the voters they sign up. Dylan Sellers, the Ohio state coordinator for Campus Vote Project, said more activities are being done online, and registration should be no exception.

Sellers said voter contact groups could spend more time engaging voters on issues if they had to spend less time on making sure a resident was registered and that their registration was up to date.

Jennifer Miller, the executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, said the groups are also pushing for changes such as same day voter registration and allowing college students to use their school identification as a voter identification. She also said it shouldn’t be up to a secretary of state to include funding for an absentee ballot request mailing in the office’s budget request in order for the mailing to happen. Instead, it should be done every year and automatically.

She said that when nearly a quarter of the adult population is not registered to vote, and the turnout during the 2014 election was lower than it had been in previous cycles, “clearly we need to do something different. It’s not working.”

Asked if the groups would take their issues directly to the ballot, Camile Wimbish, the election administration director of the Ohio Voter Rights Coalition, said the ballot is an expensive and difficult road. Instead, the coalition would like the General Assembly to take up these issues. The groups are also encouraging statewide officeholders, including the candidates for secretary of state, to implement some of these policies in their own offices. For example, they noted the next secretary of state, Democrat Kathleen Clyde or Republican Frank LaRose, will be tasked with setting the early voting schedule after a court settlement expires.

Brickner said the coalition is submitting its proposals to the candidates for state office and legislators, and is also reaching out to local government officials to make changes at the local level. As an example, he pointed to a program in Toledo where the city utilities department asks voters to update their voter registration during contacts.

The coalition also argued that its proposed changes wouldn’t jeopardize ballot security. Brickner said that the state should be careful when using technology as it relates to the ballot box, it should also not shy away from using technology. Miller added that many reforms save money and staff time so that elections officials can focus on security.