A new election law gives Ohio voters less time to return their absentee ballots. Early data shows return rates remained steady, even as some ballots were rejected under the tighter deadline.
Ahead of the primary election last week, Ohio voters requested 157,637 mail ballots and returned 141,913 of them, a return rate of 90% according to data published by the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office. That compares to a 91.5% return rate for the 2022 primary election and a 90.2% return rate in 2018.
Ben Kindel, a spokesperson for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, touted the steady return rate as evidence that the new law didn’t suppress the vote, as critics had predicted. State and local elections officials, as well as political parties and nonpartisan election groups, all worked to educate voters about the new deadline.
“This election once again shows that Ohioans don’t have to choose between election integrity and accessibility. Unofficial results show consistent turnout and absentee ballot rates, proving Ohio voters are adjusting to recent election changes,” Kindel said.
Local elections officials and a major voting-rights group cautioned against drawing conclusions from the new data, though.
Aaron Ockerman, director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials, which represents county elections officials, said he wants to see how many ballots arrived after Election Day but before Saturday, May 9, which would have been the deadline for ballots to still count under the old law.
State officials said that number won’t be available until later this month, when final election results must be certified.
Ockerman said even if this year’s return rate is relatively stable, it also can be true that a significant number of voters could see their ballots thrown out.
“I do really think the telling number is going to be how many ballots do we have to throw out [post Election Day],” Ockerman said.
Deadline change passed in December
For years, Ohio accepted absentee ballots that arrived after Election Day, as long as they had a pre-Election Day postmark. The most recent grace period 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.
But Gov. Mike DeWine signed a law in December that eliminated the post-election grace period completely. The Trump Administration pressured state lawmakers and DeWine to change the law. The Republican National Committee is suing Mississippi over a similar law in a case that’s now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Court watchers expect the high court could strike down the law soon, potentially also overturning similar laws in any other states that count mail ballots that arrive after Election Day.
Ohio didn’t consistently track how many ballots got counted in previous elections after arriving post-Election Day. But around 7,000 arrived after Election Day for the November 2024 presidential election and were still counted since they arrived within the four-day grace period.
Franklin, Cuyahoga counties tally late-arriving ballots
Signal Statewide checked with a couple of large counties to see how many ballots they received after last week’s primary election that would have counted before DeWine changed the deadline.
The Franklin County Board of Elections threw out 158 votes that would have counted under the old law, according to spokesperson Aaron Sellers. County voters returned 14,481 of the 16,771 ballots they requested, a return rate of 86%.
Cuyahoga County threw out 39 ballots that would have counted under the old law, according to Board of Elections Director Tony Perlatti. The county counted 44,779 mail ballots overall. Perlatti said the county saw a 91% return rate, which he said is in line with past elections.
In an interview, Jen Miller, president of the Ohio League of Women Voters, said even though there wasn’t a major change in ballot return rates this time, that doesn’t mean that will remain the case for November, when Ohioans will vote for governor, U.S. Senate and other high-profile statewide offices.
Primary elections typically attract very engaged, partisan voters, while casual voters typically wait until November. Miller said that as a result, the primary electorate is more likely to either follow the news closely enough to be aware of voting changes, or be engaged enough Republicans or Democrats to have been directly informed by political parties and political candidates.
“It would be a mistake to think now that the large majority of voters in Ohio understand the changed ballot deadline. I don’t think they do. And we are still going to need a lot of robust voter education before November,” Miller said.
