Ahead of election night, county officials and voting rights advocates issued some reminders Friday morning about what comes after the last of the ballots are cast in the state.
When the polls close at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, those working the polls and other county officials have already begun the legwork to get the results where they need to go.
Defiance County Board of Elections Director Tonya Wichman said, however, anyone following Ohio results trickling in Tuesday night should remember those counts are always unofficial.
“A lot of our constituents don’t understand that we’re not finding votes after the election,” Wichman told reporters. “We are working really hard to make sure we count every vote that’s available.”
Each county’s board of elections has to sift through various kinds of ballots, from those mailed in, to early votes and Election Day votes, and those cast provisionally, which often have to be processed after a voter comes back to confirm their identity or another outstanding question. Wichman has seen just one provisional ballot change the outcome of a race for a local trustee.
“We have a bipartisan team go through every ballot that comes in,” she told reporters. “They’re making sure nothing’s been missed. They are testing and making sure everything, ahead of time, for the scanners that we run those on, we have tested every button of every machine and every ballot ... to make sure it is all correct. But we will still audit those after the certification anyway.”
In Ohio, the closest of races could force an automatic recount. For statewide contests, that’s if they fall within a quarter of a percent—or 0.25 points—and for those across several counties or in just one, that’s half of percent—or 0.5 points.
Based on the sheer number of lawsuits filed ahead of the November election, more litigation could be on the horizon next week and next month, said Mike Curtin, former Democratic lawmaker and newspaper editor.
Curtin said he’d like to see “an orderly and controversy-free election.”
“But we must prepare for whatever might come, and that begins with an understanding of what the law requires,” he told reporters.
