Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has partnered with barbershops and beauty parlors across Ohio as part of a get out the vote initiative.
The “Styling for Democracy” initiative comes after over 21,000 absentee votes for the state’s primary – about 1% of all absentee votes – were lost. In an event in front of Columbus’ A Cut Above The Rest Barbershop, LaRose and local leaders called on the community to volunteer as election workers and vote in the upcoming election.
Primary ballots received without enough information, without a proper envelope, or without signatures were discarded, reports the Times-Gazette. The primarily Democratic Counties of Wayne and Franklin had the highest number of discarded votes at 2.1% of all absentee ballots being removed from the pool.
With polls showing the general election becoming increasingly competitive, the removal of 21,000 votes is concerning. President Donald Trump won Michigan by just 11,000 votes, and Wisconsin by 27,000. With over six million Ohioans voting in the 2016 presidential election, a loss of 1% of all votes would have meant 60,000 discarded ballots, and 2% would have meant 120,000 ballots.
To put that into context, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, South Dakota, Minnesota, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, were won by their respective candidate by less than 120,000 votes.
With a significant amount of Ohio’s, and in fact, the nation’s voting being done via mail-in and absentee ballots, a significant loss of ballots could change the outcome of the election.
LaRose has asked that voters move quickly and request their ballots as soon as possible, in hopes that every vote can be properly counted the reports Newark Advocate.
It is unclear what will happen should large numbers of absentee ballots be discarded in the general election, or if voters who’s ballots are discarded may have a chance to resubmit their ballots properly. The subject was not addressed by LaRose at the get out to vote event, and it is uncertain what, if anything is being done to address the issue as Ohio is primed to receive more votes by mail than ever before due to the pandemic.
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Ben Kolodny is a reporter for The Ohio Star and the Star News Network. You can follow Ben on Twitter. Tips can be sent to [email protected].
Photo “Frank LaRose” by Frank LaRose.
