Election 2020: What You Need to Know to Safely Cast Your Vote Writer // Janelle Morrison • Photography // Submitted
There has been a good deal of information posted on social media regarding in-person and absentee voting for the upcoming general election, and most of it I found to be utterly confusing or partially inaccurate. To set the record straight, I contacted the Hamilton County Election Administrator Beth Sheller to learn more about how registered voters can safely vote amid the pandemic, where they can vote and how early they can vote to avoid long queues on Nov. 3, 2020. Voting via Absentee Ballot
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isted on the Hamilton County Election Office webpage are the 12 qualifiers for absentee voting. Sheller explained the difference between no-excuse mail-in voting (that Gov. Holcomb rejected for the general election) and absentee voting. “Absentee voting is always available for people who qualify,” Sheller said.
“Absentee requires you to request and complete an application for an absentee ballot. With absentee, you have to have a reason to request and mark one of the 12 listed reasons for us to send you a ballot to vote absentee. No-excuse mail-in voting is where our office would mail every registered voter an application and they wouldn’t have to have a qualifying reason.”
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Sheller emphasized that the deadline for absentee ballots is Oct. 22, 2020, but warned that waiting until the 11th hour could be too late. By the time the ballot would be mailed and received, then completed and mailed to her office, it may not arrive on or before Election Day. Ballots received after Nov. 3 will not be counted. “We’re accepting applications right now and have already received well over 7,000 absentee ballot applications,” Sheller said. “We will start sending out ballots on Sept. 14. If you get your application in now and by Sept. 18, you’ll be among the first ones to get a ballot. The state requires that any applications we receive by Sept. 18 must go out [via mail] by Sept. 19.” I received some emails from folks wanting to know the election office’s definition of “confined” and if claiming confinement due to COVID-19 is a legitimate reason to apply for absentee or would it be considered voter fraud. Being a high-risk member of the population myself, I thought it prudent to ask, on behalf of these readers, how the election office views the definition of confinement. “I’ve had a lot of people call me and ask me that question,” Sheller stated. “We’ve also had a lot of people marking ‘confined’ on their ballots. I ask people, ‘Are you going out to the grocery store or to church or going out of your house at all?’ and all but one person that I’ve asked told me that they’ve gone absolutely nowhere since March. If you’re going out to the grocery store, then you are not truly ‘confined.’ If you are truly confining, then you can mark ‘confined’ as one of the reasons to apply for an absentee ballot.”
Expect Social Distancing and Safety Protocols at the Polls In-person voters can expect the same distancing and safety protocols that they experienced at the polls during the primary election with the added requirement of masks so as long as the governor’s mask mandate remains in effect. “We’ve already got the supplies that
AUGUST 2020
2020-08-24 11:04 AM
