As early voting began on Wednesday for the 2022 general election, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced an increase in absentee ballot applications to date from prior years and assured Ohioans that security checks are in place to make absentee voting secure against fraud.
According to LaRose, the applications for absentee ballots so far reflect a 4.4 percent increase over the gubernatorial statewide election in 2018. So far Ohioans have requested 812,200 absentee ballots, including 4,938 requests from military and overseas voters whose ballots began to be mailed last month.
“Starting today, more than 800,000 absentee ballots will begin hitting mailboxes across Ohio. This level of absentee ballot utilization for an election like this one is a strong indicator that Ohioans continue to have confidence in the security of our mail-in ballot system, and for good reason – there is no better system for security and convenience than ours,” LaRose said in the Wednesday statement.
Ohioans have utilized absentee voting for two decades and, according to LaRose, that has allowed Ohio to put in place necessary laws and processes to make absentee voting secure.
A few of the security measures put into place are that voter identification and signature are checked twice during the process of absentee voting, ballots must be requested by a voter (Ohio does not send absentee ballots to every registered voter), absentee voters must complete and sign the identification envelope, voter list maintenance allows for accurate voter rolls, and voters are able to track their ballot on voteohio.gov/track.
According to LaRose, all these requirements and processes as well as strict laws against voter fraud such as ballot harvesting have made Ohio voting secure and voter fraud very rare in the state.
The secretary of state has also created a list for voters to utilize to provide themselves with the best security for absentee voting.
Voters are encouraged to fill in the information properly and to review their form on completion, including their email and or phone number so the county board of elections can reach out if necessary, to complete their absentee ballot as soon as possible to accommodate necessary processing time, to double-check their return envelope and make sure it’s properly addressed, and to track their ballot.
The deadline to request an absentee ballot is three days prior to election day. Absentee ballots, if mailed, must be postmarked by the day before the election in order to be counted.
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Hannah Poling is a lead reporter at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Hannah on Twitter @HannahPoling1. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Absentee Ballots” by Lance Fisher. CC BY-SA 2.0.
