LIMA — Time is of the essence for registered voters planning to submit their primary election ballots by mail — the only option still remaining for most voters— in advance of the new April 28 deadline.
Ohioans originally were scheduled to vote in this year’s presidential-year primary on March 17, but the onset of the novel coronavirus forced the halt of in-person balloting. On March 25 the Ohio General Assembly passed legislation aimed at dealing with the state’s response to the pandemic, mandating that all votes not yet cast in the primary must be done by mail. While the deadline for those votes to be submitted is April 28, elections officials stress that voters should begin now to begin what could be a lengthy process of obtaining absentee ballots.
“People should not dilly-dally,” said Kathy Meyer, director of the Allen County Board of Elections, noting that applications for the absentee ballots needed to cast a vote in the primary election are in some cases at the mercy of the U.S. Postal Service.
“The post office has three to eight days to deliver mail. If someone writes to us requesting an absentee ballot, there’s three to eight days,” said Meyer. “Then we will mail a ballot to them — potentially another eight days — and if they plan to return their ballots by mail it’s going to take even longer” to complete the process.
People who have a printer in their homes and can obtain and print an application from the election board’s website have a slight advantage over those who don’t, from a time standpoint, “but overall the sooner they request an application, the better,” Meyer said.
Post cards are being mailed to all registered voters by the Ohio Secretary of State’s office as additional reminders to act quickly. Those mailings will include instructions on how to prepare their own request for a mail-in ballot.
Meyer said the deadline for her office to receive ballot requests that need to be mailed to voters is noon on April 25. The deadline to submit those ballots to the board of election office depends on the method of return.
Ballots that are mailed to the board office must be postmarked by April 27, while ballots that are brought to the board office or that are dropped in a box outside the office must be returned by 7:30 p.m. on April 28.
Becky Hermiller, deputy director of the Putnam County election office, said it is a statewide directive that drop-off boxes be made available outside all county election board offices.
Results from the primary balloting will be available sometime on the evening of April 28, Meyer said.
“We have until noon on April 29 to submit our results to the Secretary of State’s office so we have all night to count them, but we’ll probably be done that evening,” the election director said.
Certified results will not be released by the Secretary of State’s office until May 8.
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A complete list of candidates and issues in Allen, Putnam and Auglaize counties appears elsewhere in today’s newspaper.
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