CLEVELAND — As the U.S. Supreme Court weighs whether to step in on the fight to block President Trump's executive order on mail-in voting, the one that calls for the U.S. Postal Service to decide who gets a vote by mail ballot based on compiled citizenship lists, the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections wants voters to know that, for now, the process remains the same.
"Nothing has changed as far as how Ohio executes its elections and, in particular, vote by mail," said Director Anthony Perlatti, letting voters know whatever comes out of Washington is not a voter problem but something they'll be tasked with sorting out.
"Individuals, while this is confusing, should still continue to complete applications and follow the processes that they have when it comes to voting by mail. If something does change we will let you know," he said. "What is unfortunate is that there is a lot of unnecessary chaos that's being created by not Ohio election officials but outside of Ohio at the higher level, at the federal level."
Nearly a third of all vote-by-mail ballots cast in the state's May primary were cast in Cuyahoga County. Perlatti urged voters to submit their vote-by-mail ballot applications early, and said the easiest option for both voters and board workers is to use the applications arriving in mailboxes this week from Secretary of State Frank LaRose's office.
Inside, voters will find an instruction sheet on how to vote and an application with the voter's name and address already filled in; they just need to fill in the other fields highlighted in yellow. Those applications also include a unique barcode that enables workers at the Board of Elections to process the requests much faster.
"One individual can process approximately 1,000 applications with a barcode per hour. So a thousand barcodes vs. 65 manual entry. When we have over 150,000 people who will probably vote by mail in this November's election, I think you can see why the bar-coded version is so much more preferred by the Board of Elections," he said.
