Voters returning absentee ballots at drop boxes at county boards of elections have to follow certain rules to ensure their ballots are counted. Some of those rules – put in place recently by Secretary of State Frank LaRose – were challenged by a lawsuit. But the Ohio Supreme Court decided Tuesday to leave those rules in place for now.
Here’s what voters need to know about the court’s actions and the rules.
What was the drop box lawsuit about?
On Aug. 31, LaRose announced new rules for people, other than mail carriers and other delivery workers, who are handling an absentee ballot on someone else’s behalf.
Specifically, LaRose said if someone is delivering someone else’s absentee ballot to a county elections office, they can’t put it in the on-site ballot drop box.
Instead, they have to fill out a form asserting they are on a list of close relatives that state law says are allowed to handle someone else’s completed ballot or that they’re doing so on behalf of a disabled voter. Lying on the form is a felony.
The Ohio Democratic Party sued over the rules on Sept. 27, saying LaRose didn’t have legal authority to restrict access to ballot drop boxes and that they illegally prevented some voters from casting their ballots.
On Tuesday, the Ohio Supreme Court in a 4-3 ruling rejected the lawsuit, with the majority saying state Democrats waited until too close to the Nov. 5 election to file it. The court’s four Republican justices overruled its three Democratic justices, which included some temporary fill-in justices for both parties.
LaRose issued the rules not long after a July 24 ruling from a federal judge who said Ohio’s law restricting who can handle a completed absentee ballot violated a federal law protecting voters with disabilities. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit from the Ohio League of Women Voters, an advocacy group.
What does the Ohio Supreme Court ruling mean for voters?
Voters who want to vote absentee have options. First, they can return their completed absentee ballot to their county elections office via the mail. If they go that route, they should keep in mind that ballots must arrive four days after the election or earlier in order to count. If the ballot arrives after Election Day, it must be postmarked Nov. 4, the the day before the election, or earlier.
Voters returning their completed ballots at the last minute should go inside their post office to make sure it gets postmarked. The U.S. Postal Service doesn’t always do so as part of cost-cutting measures, according to Jen Miller, president of the Ohio League of Women Voters.
Voters can also hand-deliver their completed absentee ballot to their county elections office.
🗳️For more on this year’s November election, visit our Election Signals 2024 page.
Can someone else take my ballot for me?
Yes. But there are specific rules. This was the heart of the lawsuit mentioned in this story.
It’s legal to deliver someone else’s absentee ballot as long as that person is a close relative.
The state’s definition of a close relative is: spouse, father, mother, father-in-law, mother-in-law, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister, son, daughter, adopted parent, adopted child, stepparent, stepchild, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece.
The approved list does not include cousins, step-siblings, siblings-in-law or grandchildren.
Voters with disabilities also are allowed to have people deliver their completed ballots on their behalf. There are no restrictions on who this can be.
But if you are delivering a completed absentee ballot on behalf of an approved close relative, or on behalf of a voter with a disability, you can’t put it in the drop box at the county elections office.
Some voters in this situation will have to bring their ballot inside and fill out the form mentioned previously in this story. But the procedure isn’t the same everywhere. Some counties, including Cuyahoga County, elections boards will have bipartisan teams of workers outside who can provide the form and accept the ballot on the spot. Aaron Ockerman, director of the Ohio Elections Officials Association, said voters should be able to tell the situation in their county by looking if there are elections workers stationed near the drop box.
The trade-off is that you must do so when the elections office is open. The hours vary during election season, but at a minimum are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. Here’s a full list.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the postmark deadline for absentee ballots that arrive after Election Day. It has been corrected. It also has been updated to indicate some counties are accepting the ballot attestation forms outside.
