Absentee ballot requests need to be received by the board of elections by 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 1.
Each board of election has a different mailing schedule for absentee requests. For example, Montgomery County Board of Elections sends out absentee ballots in batches twice a week, while smaller boards might send them out daily, depending on demand.
Once voters receive the actual absentee ballot, they can either drop it off at their respective board of election, in-person or through drop-box, or mail it. All mailed ballots need to be postmarked by Aug. 7 and received by the board of elections by Aug. 12 in order to be counted.
Ohio law doesn’t allow voters to request absentee ballots online, but a printable form can be accessed at OhioSoS.gov and subsequently mailed into the county board of elections. Absentee voters can also call their local board of elections and request an absentee ballot.
Questions on absentee ballots, voter registration, in-person voting hours and more can be answered by local boards.
The Aug. 8th election is a single-issue special election brought forth by the state legislature. Its sole purpose is to allow Ohioans to vote on Issue 1, a three-part set of rules that will make it harder to amend the state constitution in the future by raising the vote threshold to 60% on amendment questions; and will make it harder for citizen campaigns to get amendments on the ballot in the first place by requiring campaigns to hit signature quotas in all 88 Ohio counties, instead of the current 44 county requirement.
Issue 1 would also remove the 10 day “cure period” that allows citizen campaigns to collect more signatures if the Secretary of State ultimately finds that there aren’t enough signatures to get the question on the ballot.
