by J.D. Davidson
For Ohio, Monday is the calm before the Election Day storm.
Early in-person voting ended Sunday, leaving Tuesday as the final day to cast a ballot. Polls open across the state at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m.
While Vice President Kamala Harris and President Donald Trump spent the weekend and Monday covering the six battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona, Ohio Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown and Republican challenger Bernie Moreno covered Ohio in a last-ditch effort to sway voters before Tuesday.
Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance is Trump’s running mate on the GOP ticket and is also canvassing the battlegrounds.
The ballot also includes contested races for several U.S. House of Representative seats, Ohio Supreme Court seats and the anti-gerrymandering Issue 1 that would change who would draw the state’s voting districts.
More than 1.5 million cast ballots early in person.
In Franklin County, some polling locations were forced to stay open more than 90 minutes past the scheduled closing time to accommodate voters who arrived late for the 4 p.m. cutoff time. Some voters in the state’s most populous county were forced to wait in line for more than three hours to cast a ballot.
Absentee mail-in ballots must be postmarked by Monday night or dropped off at the county board of elections by 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday. This year, voters can only return their own ballot at a dropbox.
Through Sunday, nearly 1 million Ohio ballots were returned by mail.
Voters on Election Day must present an approved voter ID, which includes an Ohio driver’s license, state ID card, interim ID issued by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, U.S. passport, U.S. passport card, U.S. military ID card, or a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ID card.
Historically, between 5.6 million and 5.7 million Ohio voters cast ballots in the last four presidential elections, aside from a higher total during 2020 when absentee voting was expanded due to the pandemic.
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An Ohio native, J.D. Davidson is a veteran journalist with more than 30 years of experience in newspapers in Ohio, Georgia, Alabama and Texas. He has served as a reporter, editor, managing editor and publisher. Davidson is a regional editor for The Center Square.
Photo “People Voting” by Danny Howard. CC BY-SA 2.0.
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