There was disturbing news from the Summit County Ohio Board of Elections last week. The absentee ballots of 861 voters who mailed their selections to the board were disqualified, even though they had done nothing wrong. What their ballots lacked was a postmark, or at least the kind required by Ohio law.
The disqualified ballots from the Nov. 3 election represent 9 percent of the mailed-in absentee ballots in the county. No one familiar with Ohio’s role in Presidential elections could ignore easily the thought that such a disqualification rate next year, multiplied across this battleground state, could throw the national results into controversy and lawsuits.
The problem that surfaced in Summit County has been simmering since 2008, when the legislature, in an otherwise commendable effort to encourage early voting, allowed boards to count mailed absentee ballots received within 10 days of an election, provided they were postmarked by the day before Election Day.
Yet, at the same time, the national policy of the Postal Service states that not every piece of mail gets the kind of traditional postmark required by Ohio law, meaning the problem in Summit County is really a statewide problem. The Postal Service considers a piece of mail with a printed postal label or a metered piece of mail to already have a postmark.
And, as was the case with some of the absentee ballots in Summit County, there is no guarantee that every piece of mail with a regular stamp will get a sprayed-on ink postmark, either.
The problem in Summit County appears to have been aggravated this year by the closing of a local mail processing center in April.
When ballots came in late, some 600 on the day after Election Day, most had a postmark problem.
In Oregon, where every election is conducted by mail, ballots are accepted until 8 p.m. on Election Day, period, no postmarks required, no late ballots permitted.
If Ohio wants to continue a 10-day window for late absentee ballots, it must come to grips quickly with its counting rules or risk the possibility of an electoral meltdown next year.
Jon Husted, the Secretary of State, is looking into the issue, as are Summit County elections officials. But because of the way statewide voting records are kept, the Secretary of State’s office does not know how many late absentee ballots have been disqualified by postmark problems in recent elections.
Husted long has been concerned about uniformity in voting practices and, in 2013, conducted a statewide investigation of possible voter fraud, referring some 270 cases to county prosecutors for action, out of more than 5 million votes cast in 2012. Now there is solid evidence that 861 voters in one county alone have had their ballots disqualified, many over what amounts to a technical distinction of what constitutes a postmark.
Democratic State Reps. Alicia Reece of Cincinnati and Emilia Sykes of Akron asked, that the Secretary of State must conduct a thorough statewide investigation and soon recommend changes to the legislature.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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