A ballot drop box in the Board of Elections' parking lot
The ballot drop box at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections' new location at 1803 Superior Ave. Credit: Nick Castele / Signal Cleveland

Almost 30% of mail-in ballots requested by Cuyahoga County voters for the general election have not been returned as of Election Day, according to data from the Ohio Secretary of State’s office. If they aren’t delivered in person to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections today, they won’t be counted.

Mail-in ballots cannot be turned in at a polling place. Voters must drop them in the drop box in the parking lot of the Board of Elections’ new location, 1803 Superior Ave., Cleveland, by 7:30 p.m.

The total number of unreturned mail-in ballots is almost 17,000, more than triple the number in Franklin County, which has more residents.

If the Cuyahoga County return rate of 71% holds, it will be by far the lowest in at least 10 years. Since 2015, the average return rate for general elections is almost 92%.

“We have spent the last several days using our communication platforms and the media to encourage people to return their ballots,” said Mike West, spokesperson for the Board of Elections.

A voter who requested a mail-in ballot can vote at their polling place by requesting a provisional ballot. That ballot would not be counted until after the deadline for mailed-in ballots to arrive (four days after Election Day). You can check your polling place on this page.

If you already mailed your ballot, you can check its status on this page.

Associate Editor (he/him)
Important stories are hiding everywhere, and my favorite part of journalism has always been the collaboration, working with colleagues to find the patterns in the information we’re constantly gathering. I don’t care whose name appears in the byline; the work is its own reward. As Batman said to Commissioner Gordon in “The Dark Knight,” “I’m whatever Gotham needs me to be.”