LIMA — Absentee voting, whether by mail or by voting early in person, is designed to help Ohioans ensure their votes are submitted when they will knowingly be unavailable on Election Day or to avoid any unforeseen circumstances that would keep them away from the polls.
“Back in 2004, there were issues with lines and things were sluggish at the polls,” Ohio Secretary of State’s Office spokesman Joshua Eck said. “When you have millions of people coming out to do the exact same thing on the same day, it can cause some congestion. So by encouraging people to cast their ballots early, as we do now, we can alleviate some of that rush on Election Day and give people a smoother voting experience.”
However, while one in three voters cast their ballots early during the 2012 presidential election, those numbers are down slightly this year. While more than 1.6 million voters exercised absentee voting options in 2012 as of Oct. 19, that number was down to 1.4 million this year as of Friday.
“Of those, 344,000 have returned the absentee ballot,” Eck said. “We’ve had 153,000 people vote early in person at their Board of Elections. The turnout isn’t quite where it was in 2012 at this point, but there’s still about a week and a half left of voting.”
According to numbers from the Ohio Secretary of State, absentee ballot requests in Allen County reflect that downward trend, with 8,860 total ballots requested compared to 9.396 in 2012, a 6 percent decrease. For Allen County Board of Elections Director Kathy Meyer, the contentious election season could play into that.
“I think what’s happening is that, the longer people take to make up their minds, the longer they’ll wait,” she said. “Numbers are down a little bit right now.”
Outside Allen County, however, absentee requests are actually up from this time four years ago in many surrounding counties, with Auglaize County seeing a 10 percent increase in requests, Putnam County seeing a 19 percent increase and Van Wert County seeing a 12 percent increase. Hardin County was down 1 percent from its 2012 numbers.
“We have processed, which means sent out, 4,800, as of” Thursday, Auglaize County Board of Elections Director Michelle Wilcox said. “In 2012, the number of absentee ballots counted in the presidential election was about 5,900. We’ve already sent out 4,800 and we’ve actually received back 3,200 for counting. There’s still 10 days to go, and we get most of them near the end.”
Wilcox said the aim of every county board of elections in Ohio is to make it both as convenient and as secure as possible for voters, with absentee voting playing a key role in that achieving that goal.
“You don’t have to wait in line and you can do it from the convenience of your home,” she said. “You can sit at home and study the issues and the candidates more in depth. All you have to do is call us and ask for an absentee ballot application.”
While the deadline to request an absentee ballot is Saturday, boards of elections are urging voters to have any applications returned to them by Monday.
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