Ohio’s primary a test for the nation – and for November
State to conduct an almost all-mail election
CINCINNATI – The nation will look to Ohio on Tuesday on how to vote during this pandemic.
Or how not to.
Ohio will hold an election like no other in the state’s 217-year history, an almost all-mail primary.
The novel coronavirus pandemic halted Ohio’s March 17 primary a month after early voting had started and thousands of votes were cast. The primary was extended to April 28, with virtually all voters required to mail in their votes.
“We’re going to see a lot of states try this out in April, May and June,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin. “They’re going to make a lot of mistakes. But they’ll learn a lot by November.”
Slow mail delivery in Ohio also has elections officials concerned voters won’t receive ballots on time.
Days before the primary, it wasn’t clear whether help would come. And it could lead to long lines as voters who applied for ballots but didn’t receive them cast provisional ballots – not at their polling places, which are closed, but at county boards of elections, which are supposed to be open only a small group of voters.
Some voters told The Enquirer, part of the USA TODAY Network, they’ve applied multiple times for ballots they haven’t received. Others received their ballots within five days of submitting an application and said they liked the convenience and safety of voting at home.
Like to or not, more people will likely be voting by mail in November across the country.
Nationwide, about a quarter of the voters cast their ballot by mail in 2018, according to the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission’s 2018 survey.
For the general election, more than half of American voters could cast their ballots by mail, many election experts told The Enquirer. People will want to avoid polls, especially if the novel coronavirus surges in the fall, as some experts expect.
“I think it’s reasonable to expect really big increases in vote by mail,” said Lawrence Norden, director of the election reform program for the law and public policy think tank the Brennan Center for Justice.
There’s no way to know for sure, he said. That’s where Ohio comes in.
Ohio took the lead
Timing has placed Ohio at the center of this drama.
The novel coronavirus pandemic struck right as Ohio prepared for its March 17 primary. Hours before polls were set to open, Gov. Mike DeWine and director of Public Health Amy Acton decided the safest option to prevent the spread of the disease was to postpone the election and close down polls.
The Ohio General Assembly moved the primary day to April 28. Ohio would end up being the first of many other states to postpone its election and change the rules.
As the pandemic has worsened, 21 other states have postponed their primaries as of April 23, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The list is growing. And many are debating going all-mail.
These states hope to avoid the debacle like the one seen in Wisconsin April 7. The Supreme Court blocked the governor’s attempt there to postpone the primary.
Long lines wrapped around the handful of polling locations open. A backlog of applications caused many voters to not receive ballots in time, even those who applied two weeks in advance.
And now some COVID-19 cases have been linked to the Wisconsin primary.
Why some are concerned
Conducting an election through the Postal Service isn’t without pitfalls. Just days before the election, Secretary of State Frank LaRose wrote a letter to Ohio’s congressional delegation saying he was worried voters won’t get ballots in time. First-class mail that usually takes one to three days is, in some parts of the state, taking seven to nine days, LaRose wrote.
“As you can imagine, these delays mean it is very possible that many Ohioans who have requested a ballot may not receive it in time,” LaRose wrote.
He’s asked for additional postal service staff to handle the ballots promptly.
Voters who applied for ballots by the deadline of noon on April 25 but didn’t get one can ask for a provisional ballot at their local board of elections on Tuesday. Election officials warned that a provisional ballot is not a backstop for those who didn’t meet the deadline.
Provisional voting should be a rare exception, LaRose said in a tweet.
“Voters should not make it their plan to show up Tuesday unless they are homeless or disabled,” LaRose tweeted. So far, LaRose’s office has not issued guidance on how each board of elections should count the provisional ballots.
Boards of elections around the state were preparing for long lines.
They are working with health officials and county prosecutors “to create as safe an environment as possible for voters and election officials,” said Aaron Ockerman, executive director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials.
Boards are considering or already have plans to distance voters, take their temperatures, create outdoor voting environments and use personal protective equipment to limit the spread of the virus, he said.
Voters with higher temperatures could be moved to another line to vote in a different area, Ockerman said.
“We’re preparing people for the fact that we’re going to have lines,” said Ed Leonard, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections. “I think every board of elections in the state is going to have a line of people waiting to cast their ballot.”
Ohio is no stranger to by-mail votes. It is one of 34 states that allows for some form of early, no-excuse voting, according to the NCSL.
But most Ohioans vote in person on Election Day and not by mail.
Voting rights groups and election experts point out that voting by mail offers more opportunities for things to go wrong.
Ohio’s process requires voters to send in an absentee ballot request, to wait for a ballot to be mailed back to them with a postage-paid envelope, to fill the ballot out, and to send it back to the board of elections.
Ballots can get lost in the mail. Voters can fill out ballots wrong, putting dates on the wrong line or not specifying whether they want a Democratic or Republican ballot.