BY NICK EVANS
Ohio Senators voted Wednesday to require absentee ballots arrive at county election boards by Election Day to be counted. The change represents yet another shortening of the return timeline with each successive federal election.
In 2024, ballots postmarked the day before the election had four days to show up. In 2022, properly postmarked ballots had 10 days to arrive.
Thirty four other states require voters to return absentee ballots by Election Day, but the push to pass Ohio Senate Bill 293 comes thanks, in part, to threats from the Trump administration.
In a March executive order, the president reinterpreted federal statutes setting the date of elections to declare any ballots received after Election Day are invalid.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose told state senators the U.S. Department of Justice had already warned his office about a potential lawsuit.
Notably, a federal judge rejected a related assertion of federal authority over elections just last week.
Ruling on the same executive order, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly determined the Trump administration doesn’t have the authority to require voters show proof of citizenship.
Looking back to the framers, she wrote, “The states have initial authority to regulate elections. Congress has supervisory authority over those regulations. The president does not feature at all.”
Speaking after the committee hearing, state Sen. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson, acknowledged federal pressure was a factor, but insisted lawmakers advanced the bill because “it’s the right thing to do.”
She also brushed off complaints about shifting timelines.
“Voters are smart, and they catch on to those changes,” she said.
“They’ll find their new polling locations as those change, and as the dates change, they’ll adapt as well.”
Committee pushback
League of Women Voters of Ohio Executive Director Jen Miller said reducing the timeline for returning ballots won’t improve election security.
“It simply erects more barriers to voting and punishes hard working Ohio tax paying citizens for something out of control, the speed of the mail service.”
Absentee ballots are often the most accessible choice for voters with disabilities, seniors, and active-duty military, Miller said. They also offer flexibility for Ohioans who work during regular business hours, she added.
But federal cost-cutting has slowed postal delivery.
In several parts of Ohio, Miller said, mail leaves the state for processing before getting delivered.
“We have, over and over again every election, ballots that were sometimes put in the mail two or three weeks before Election Day that just didn’t get there until the day after,” she said. “Those should count.”
And nothing is lost, she said, by allowing time for ballots to arrive; county boards process provisional ballots for four days following the election.
Collin Marozzi from the ACLU of Ohio criticized lawmakers for acquiescing to the Trump administration’s threats.
“It cannot be overstated how inappropriate it is for a federal officeholder with no constitutional authority to regulate elections, to threaten states with the Department of Justice,” Marozzi said.
“At best,” he added, “it’s an insult to federalism, and political coercion at worst.”
Senate floor debate
One of the bill’s sponsors, state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, offered a different explanation.
Last year, she said, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with Republicans challenging a Mississippi law that allowed ballots to be returned up to five days after Election Day.
The judges determined federal statute sets the day “by which ballots must be both cast by voters and received by state officials.”
Gavarone stressed voters still have a month of early voting in person or through the mail.
“This bill does not change early voting,” she said. “Ohioans have the right to vote. We want all valid votes to count, and the process needs to be done on Election Day.”
Her co-sponsor, state Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware, recited all 34 states that require absentee ballots arrive by Election Day.
“So, before we hear that this is, again, taking away rights of people — it isn’t,” Brenner insisted.
State Sen. Bill DeMora, D-Columbus, said relying on an increasingly unreliable postal system is unfair to voters.
He described how one of his staffers requested an absentee ballot more than two weeks ago for Tuesday’s election.
It still hasn’t shown up, and she wound up unable to vote.
In the most recent election, he added, almost 10,000 ballots showed up in the four days following Election Day.
“Ten thousand eligible voters who followed every rule, who cast their ballots on time, who did everything the law asked of them, would have had their voices stolen because, the post office,” DeMora said.
He also rejected Republicans’ reliance on the Fifth Circuit — “the most whackadoodle circuit on the federal bench” — to justify the change.
“The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has no jurisdiction over the state of Ohio,” DeMora said. “None whatsoever.”
The measure passed, with all but one Republican voting in favor of the change.
Speaking after the vote Senate President Rob McColley downplayed the potential for voter confusion as the deadline for returning ballots changes again.
“I think most voters, if you ask them right now, and we had 100 people in here and said, raise your hand if you think your ballot needs to be in by Election Day, I would imagine the vast majority of them would raise their hands,” he said.
Minority Leader Nickie Antonio actually agreed with his assessment, but added, “The thing is, we’re having to trust the U.S. Post Office, which has been attacked in terms of a lack of funding, a lack of personnel, complicating how they do business.”
