This is my county. I’ll need to follow up to make sure the four votes mailed in from my household were not among the 300+ misplaced. And I’ll make sure we vote in person in November — too much can go wrong, accidentally or deliberately.
[MSN] Several hundred Butler County ballots were lost in the mail following Ohio's first-ever mail-in primary.The Butler County Board of Elections said although the 318 ballots were postmarked by the April 27 deadline, they didn't get to the Butler County elections board until this week, days after the May 8 deadline to be counted.
All but one of the ballots were delivered together on Monday. The remaining ballot has since been delivered.
County elections officials said this situation clearly shows there needs to be more time between the deadline to request an absentee ballot and Election Day.
"We are deeply disappointed by the failure of the postal service to deliver these properly cast ballots prior to the May 8 deadline," said Director Diane Noonan. "It was our understanding that the USPS was instituting additional checks to ensure all ballots were properly delivered, and that clearly didn't happen."
Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose has written to Postal Service headquarters calling for an investigation and steps to make sure the issue doesn't happen this fall.
"These voters have effectively been disenfranchised in the Ohio primary election," LaRose wrote.
The secretary's spokeswoman, Maggie Sheehan, said Butler, in southwest Ohio, was the only county that has reported late deliveries so far.
LaRose is asking the Ohio legislature to expand the absentee ballot request deadline before the November general election. A three-day window between requesting a vote-by-mail ballot and election day is "logistically impossible," he has said.
Ohio's March 17 primary was extended after in-person voting that day was canceled for public health reasons amid the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...spread. The vast majority of votes cast were by mail.