Mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day will no longer count in Ohio, under a bill signed into law on Friday by Gov. Mike DeWine.
DeWine said he gave serious consideration to vetoing Senate Bill 293. But a looming decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that could overturn a similar voting law in Mississippi convinced him to “reluctantly” sign the bill, the governor told reporters on Friday.
Republican lawmakers passed the bill late last month, fast-tracking it under pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration.
For years, Ohio has had a grace period for ballots that arrive after Election Day, as long as they have a pre-Election Day postmark. The most recent deadline was four days post-election, which GOP lawmakers trimmed from seven days in 2023. The extra time was meant to protect voters against delays in the mail.
The left-leaning Ohio Voter Rights Coalition, which includes the ACLU of Ohio and the League of Women Voters of Ohio, issued a statement rebuking DeWine’s decision to sign what they called an “anti-democratic bill.”
“By signing this bill into law, Governor DeWine has erected yet another barrier for eligible voters to cast a ballot and have their votes counted, as well as enacted another unnecessary, unfunded mandate for county boards of elections,” the coalition said.
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DeWine signed the 2023 law that reduced the grace period. But he said at the time that he considered the issue “settled” and that he wouldn’t support any future voting restrictions.
On Friday, DeWine said the current rules for post-election mail ballots are “reasonable.”
“I normally would veto and [restore] this four-day grace period,” DeWine said.
But, he cited the Mississippi case, which he said could lead the U.S. Supreme Court to also strike down Ohio’s law and create chaos for next year’s election in Ohio. That case stems from a lawsuit from the Republican National Committee.
“There simply would not be enough time for the legislature to pass a law to inform the Supreme Court decision in federal law,” DeWine said.
Republican lawmakers said reducing post-Election Day ballots would help avoid voter confusion and increase public confidence in election results. They also said it will put Ohio more in line with the rest of the country – Ohio is one of 16 states that accept ballots that arrive after Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Democrats meanwhile have said the bill would disenfranchise voters over mail delays, and criticized the bill as rushed.
Thousands of Ohio ballots arrive after Election Day each election
Ohio has counted post-Election Day mail ballots since the mid-2000s, when officials first broadly expanded early voting. It has since become common for thousands of mail ballots to arrive late and still be counted.
For instance, 9,523 out of the 1 million mail-in ballots counted for the November 2024 presidential election arrived after Election Day, according to state election data.
These straggling ballots can decide close races. While Ohio has no recent high-profile examples, the 2020 presidential election is a well-known case, which Trump lost.
Trump has since said repeatedly that the 2020 election was marred by widespread fraud, a claim that’s been rejected as false or unsupported by numerous courts and some top officials within the president’s 2020 campaign and government.
DeWine said Friday that he hopes that Ohioans will learn of the law change before voting begins in May, and adjust their behavior accordingly. Ohio still allows weeks of early voting, he said, in addition to traditional voting on Election Day.