The state's top elections official voted a provisional ballot on election day earlier this month. That's because the ballot he cast while on military duty in Europe didn't make it back to Ohio within the four-day grace period now in law—a change he had advocated for.
In early April, when Secretary of State Frank LaRose was deployed with the Ohio Army National Guard in Europe, he cast a ballot for the May primary. He tracked his overseas ballot, the same way he's advised all Ohioans who cast mail-in ballots to do. LaRose's spokesman Ben Kindel said when the ballot hadn't arrived by election day, LaRose went to his local precinct and cast a provisional ballot in person.
What LaRose did is perfectly legal and appropriate in the situation. But Sen. Bill DeMora (D-Columbus) said LaRose, who has pushed for more stringent laws on mail-in voting for most Ohioans in recent years, had an advantage to be able to cast that provisional ballot that many military members didn’t.
“Frank LaRose, who pushed for this, got to have his cake and eat it too," DeMora said in an interview.
Military and overseas voters are protected by the federal Uniform Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) and had four extra days in this primary to get their ballots back to boards of elections. That’s because they were exempted from Senate Bill 293, which went into effect in March. It requires all other mail-in ballots to be at boards of elections by the end of election day.
But UOCAVA voters were affected by a law signed in 2023 that shortened the window for all mail-in ballots. That change took a ten-day grace period for ballots to arrive after an Election Day down to four days.
House Bill 458 passed in the wee hours of the morning during the lame duck session in late 2022. Among those who spoke for HB 458 was former Rep. Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati), who said on the House floor: “The majority of states require that all absentee ballots be returned by the end of Election Day itself. So giving four days after is more generous than most other states.”
The reduction in days from ten to four was part of a large bill that changed ID requirements and did away with August special elections. Ironically, later that year, the legislature, which had exempted itself from the law, put a special election on the August ballot. That issue would have made it harder for citizen-led amendments to get to the ballot, and would have required 60% voter approval for passage. It failed.
UOCAVA ballots in the May primary
As of May 15, the Secretary of State’s office dashboard showed there were 1,073 UOCAVA ballots that had been sent out but hadn’t been returned by the May 9 deadline. There could be several reasons why. And it does not mean all of those people who are overseas and requested a ballot didn’t vote. Some may have decided not to vote. Others may have cast a provisional ballot as LaRose did. And some ballots may be late due to mail delays.
But DeMora said he thinks mail delays are a problem that needs to be addressed – especially when it comes to overseas and military voters.
“The way the mail system works, overseas ballots sometimes never make it back here," DeMora said.
The executive director for the League of Women Voters of Ohio agreed mail service can be tricky.
“When absentee voting was passed many years ago, our mail service was more efficient than it is today. It’s been chronically underfunded, and we don’t have the infrastructure we used to have," said Jen Miller.
The director of the voting rights group All Voting is Local said the legislature continues to make it harder for those who rely on mail-in voting.
“It’s part of the continued effort that we see in the legislature right now to continue to whittle away with this method that millions of Ohioans rely on as millions of Ohioans rely on as a way to make their voices heard on Election Day that fits in with their lives," said Steve David, All Voting is Local’s Ohio State Director
President Trump has been outspoken about mail-in ballots, saying he believes they are often vehicles for fraud, though there's no evidence of that. And recently on PBS, Trump defended his own use of mail-in ballots in a special election in Florida in March.
“I decided to vote a mail-in ballot in Florida because I couldn’t be there because I have a lot of different things," Trump said. "But you know, we have exceptions for mail in-ballots."
Those exceptions in Florida—plans to be out of town, to have business conflicts, illnesses or military services—used to be standard reasons for Ohioans to cast absentee ballots before 2005. That's when Ohio lawmakers passed no-excuse mail-in voting, partly because of long lines in the 2004 election that disenfranchised some voters.
There's been no bill proposed in Ohio that would get rid of mail-in voting. But there is legislation to eliminate secure drop boxes that voters can use to return ballots instead of mailing them.
DeMora said he’d like to restore those ten days that were eliminated in HB 458 in 2023, and he wants them brought back for all voters, not just those who are overseas or in the military. But since Republicans just eliminated that grace period in approving SB 293, he said there’s clearly not the political will in the legislature to do that.
