Ohio’s Secretary of State has announced that the number of Ohioan’s requesting absentee ballot has more than doubled since the 2016 election.
Over 2 million absentee ballot applications have been filled out in Ohio. This includes 24,000 requests from voters in the military or out of the country. At this time in 2016, there were just over 957,000 requests made.
The Allen County Board of Elections Director Kathy Meyer says as of Wednesday, they have received over 12,600 requests. She believes that applications being automatically sent out, in addition to the pandemic has caused a significant increase.
“Because of last spring, doing it all by mail, and those who are still concerned about the Coronavirus are doing the absentee by mail," says Meyer. "Some of it is because those applications have been sent out, and they are encouraging us to encourage the public to vote by mail because of the Coronavirus.”
The deadline to register to vote or update voter information is Monday, October 5th. Mail-in and early in-person voting in Ohio will then begin the following day. The last day to request a mail-in ballot is October 31st at noon, and can not be done by fax or email. For more information, visit sos.state.oh.us.
