Citing a six-page ballot and fewer people who voted by mail, voters should expect to see some lines at their polling location, Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Director Anthony Perlatti said Monday during a news conference.
“You are going to wait a little bit,” he said. “If you’re used to going to your polling place, and you’re in five minutes in and out, that’s not going to happen this election.”
He said he’s disappointed that more people didn’t use mail-in ballots, which can reduce lines on Election Day. He expects overall turnout to be about 70 percent, which is on par with previous presidential elections.
“During early in-person yesterday, some voters waited up to four hours to vote,” he said. “Now, I don’t anticipate that at the polls. If you were to be there for 30 minutes, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Fewer people voted by mail compared to four year ago
Nearly 63,000 people voted in-person before election day, compared to 53,000 people who did so in the 2020 election. Perlatti said that 2024 and 2020 election cycles offered roughly the same number of early voting hours and, therefore, make for a even comparison.
During this year’s election, 179,000 voters requested applications for mail-in ballots, which equals about 20% of the county’s 889,746 registered voters. Voters had returned 156,000 main-in ballots as of Monday. Even with a 100 percent return rate, which is not likely, the total will still be far fewer than the 318,214 ballots returned in 2020 election.
Cleveland Documenter Laurie Redmon
has more from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Nov. 1 meeting including:
- Details on what voters can do if their U.S. citizenship is challenged at the polls
- And the board has hired 450 additional poll workers and has 27,000 additional ballots on standby for Election Day
Voters have until the end of today to post-mark their mail-in ballots, or they can return them in person to the elections board before 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Perlatti said Cuyahoga’s ballot requires $1.01 worth of postage.
Perlatti said he believes concern about U.S. Postal Service delivering ballots on time may have contributed to some voters’ decision to vote in person this year.
“We have a great relationship with the United States Postal Service,” Perlatti said. “But some of the things that we hear when people were coming in line … they’re just not sure that their ballot is going to make it through the post office entirely to us. I think that may have impacted some of the volume of individuals who were requesting the ballots. Again, it’s still robust, but it’s not what we had hoped.”
Final results not likely before midnight
Perlatti said the size of the county and its 289 polling locations make it unlikely results will be available early. He said that he expects to tabulate the in-person and mail-in ballots around 8 p.m. He said results will be available as they are returned from polling locations across the county. The board is required to provide updated results every half hour to the Ohio Secretary of State.
Poll watchers expected at every polling location
Perlatti said that poll watchers representing the Democratic and Republican parties have registered and have been trained to be on site at each of the 289 polling locations on Tuesday.
Poll watchers are not allowed to confront voters directly.
“Those observers are able to move around the polling location,” Perlatti said. “They are not to engage with the voters. They are not to stand over your shoulder and see how you vote or what goes through the scanner. They are observing from afar. Then if they see something that seems to be that it’s questionable to them, and most of the time it’s because they don’t understand processes like our poll workers do, they then have individuals that they call, and then those select few people call the board.”
You can’t promote a candidate by name on clothing, but a MAGA hat or shirt could be OK
Perlatti said state rules prohibit voters from promoting a candidate by name on their clothing. He said poll workers will ask voters to remove or cover up clothing promoting a candidate.
“If a person wants to be stubborn and not follow the rules of Ohio, our poll workers will not engage in any battle with you, and ultimately, we will let you vote,” he said. “But shame on you for not following the rules and making that simple adjustment.”
But Perlatti said this year Secretary of State Frank LaRose has given boards new directions to allow slogans.
“He says if somebody were to have a shirt that has a slogan but does not have the name of a candidate, that is allowed,” Perlatti said. “That’s new for us. We will go ahead and follow the rules.”
Does that mean voters can wear clothing displaying former President Donald Trump’s marquee slogan, “Make America Great Again?”
“If it does not have the name of the candidate anywhere on the article of clothing or any of the campaigns for any of the various things,” Perlatti responded, adding that poll workers “are not the fashion police.”
