The secretary of state intends to send applications for absentee ballots to every registered voter in Ohio for next year’s gubernatorial election and would prefer to continue the practice in presidential and gubernatorial election years.
No formal decision has been made, but doing so provides clear benefits at the polls on election day, given how many people vote absentee either by mail or in person at their county board of elections.
“It encourages absentee voting and helps to alleviate long lines on election day,” said Matt McClellan, a spokesman for Secretary of State Jon Husted. “Last year’s election was the first time we did it and I think it broke down to where a third of the votes cast were by absentee.”
The secretary of state sent absentee ballots to 6.9 million registered voters across the state in 2012. There were about 5.6 million votes cast in the general election. Nearly 1.9 million of those were cast as absentee ballots, either by people who sent them through the mail or by others who voted in-person absentee at their county elections board.
The mailing in 2012 cost the state about $1.6 million, and was covered by funding from the federal Helping America Vote Act. McClellan said it appears Ohio still has enough of that money left to pay for the mailing next fall.
Last year was the first for a statewide distribution. It followed an agreement that Husted and Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald reached after Husted had ordered counties to not send absentee ballot applications to all their voters. FitzGerald had said he intended to pay for it with county funds.
Husted’s objection was that not all counties could afford to do so, creating a scenario where absentee applications for a statewide election would be sent to voters in some counties, but not others.
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