Board of Elections ready to send ballots
The Auglaize County Board of Elections is gearing up for the November general election and will be mailing absentee ballots soon.
So far, 15.6 percent of all county registered voters, some 5,032 people, will be voting by mail — and it isn’t even October yet. By comparison, in 2016, absentee voting totals included 6,122 ballots.
“We are just going to be very busy and doing the best job we can,” board of elections staff member Ada Cummins said.
Early voters have until the Monday before the election to submit those ballots, although Michelle Wilcox, director of the board, encourages voters to submit them as soon as possible — and to not try to test the system by submitting multiple ballots.
Absentee ballots will be sent to those who have requested them on Oct. 6.
Staff are reaching out to 40 people who have made a request — 30 of the applications received have missing information and 10 of the requests are from people who are not registered to vote. These requests for absentee ballots cannot be filled unless staff can receive answers to their questions.
Wilcox encouraged voters to read all instructions for absentee ballots and to have a plan in the event they cannot vote in person at their precinct.
“What if you were ill on Election Day?” Wilcox said.
Even with the strong early interest in voting absentee, Wilcox still wants to use as many of the 252 poll workers who have signed up
as she can. She said among those who signed up to work are students and attor- neys who would qualify for continuing law education. The minimum needed to man polling locations is 156 people. “We are going to go ahead and use as many as we can, only because of the social distancing and the different jobs that they are going to have, like sanitizing,” Wilcox said.
Poll workers are mandated to wear masks.
“If they are interacting with voters they have to wear a face shield as well. We didn’t buy plexiglass. It’s too expensive; thousands and thousands of dollars,” Wilcox said.
For those planning to vote in person on Nov. 3, Wilcox is encouraging them to wear a mask. She shared their mask protocol.
“If somebody walks in without a mask we are going to say ‘I noticed you didn’t have a mask; here are masks, we have masks provided,’” Wilcox said. “If they don’t want to wear one, we are going to say ‘for the safety of our voters and our poll workers who are at that compromised age, we would ask that you vote curbside.’ Then if they say no, we get them in