Voting deadlines extended, ID requirements changed

BY CORNELIA GRACE Harrison News-Herald Reporter

CADIZ—The Harrison County Board of Elections held its regular public monthly meeting on February 13, 2023. The meeting began with Director Dion Troiano reviewing a directive from the secretary of state that detailed changes that will happen because of House Bill 458. The bill makes changes to the election process by extending voting deadlines, moving early voting hours, and, most notably, changing voter ID requirements.

As a chart from the secretary of state shows, for election day voting, Ohioans can now use a U.S. Passport as valid identification but can no longer use a bank statement, government check, or other government documents. A passport is now a valid ID for every kind of voting: in-person absentee, absentee by mail, and provisional. However, it is not valid identification for registering to vote.

Registering to vote now requires an Ohio driver’s license, ID number, or the last four digits of your social security number. Due to the high number of Amish in the community, one board member asked about how that will be accommodated.

“There is a form for religious exemption to not being photographed,” Troiano said. “They can call us, and we can print one off and mail it to them; they can call the secretary of state, or I believe the BMV should have a copy of it.”

HB 458 also changes absentee voting by mail by changing the deadline to receive applications, to the Tuesday before election day instead of the Saturday before. To help accommodate this, business hours were extended for that Tuesday to 8:30 p.m.

There will be new statutory reporting to differentiate between ballots returned via dropbox, handed over the counter, or by mail. This will include bounce-back ballots, which are returned through the mail.

Troiano gave a quick reminder to anyone filling out absentee applications, “If you plan to be out of state, please put the address you are going to be at so we can mail your ballot to the correct location.”

He said they often have bounce-backs because the person spends the winter in another state, and election mail cannot be forwarded. Be sure to fill out your application properly, and if you have any questions about it, you can always call the board of elections at 740-942-8866.

The bill also changed rules for curbside voting. “Before, it was just if anyone who was sick and didn’t want to come in, you could do curbside voting. Now you have to be physically unable to enter,” Troiano said.

Unfortunately, there is not yet a definition for what it means to be “physically unable,” but the expectation is that there will be future directives to clarify what this means for individual voters and the boards running elections.

There are also changes to the age requirements for poll workers. Now, a seventeen-year-old may serve as a poll worker regardless of what grade they are in. Previously, only seventeen-year-olds who were also at least seniors in high school were permitted.

The board went on to pay bills and discuss some old business, along with a short report about the recent Winter Conference that several board members attended. The next conference will be in the summer, but the board is already preparing as the deadline for accommodations and registration is early March.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has cleaned up Ohio’s voter registration database. During voter list maintenance, county boards report registrations they deem abandoned, meaning the registrant passed away, was incarcerated, moved, or did not participate in any elections in six years. Additional abandoned registrations were identified via the National Change of Address process, where USPS notifies counties of those who moved from their registered address. Generally, registrations being removed have been inactive for 12 elections. In 2022, the boards identified 139,770 registrations for cancellation. Upon conclusion of the November 2022 election, boards reported 124,158 cancellations, as 15,612 voters were identified and removed from the original list. Any person whose voter registration has been canceled can immediately reinstate their ability to vote by reregistering at ohiosos.gov/elections/ voters/or by visiting their county board of elections. The full list of canceled registrations can be viewed at registrationreadiness.ohiosos.gov.