CLEVELAND — Polls across Ohio will be open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday as voters cast their ballots in the 2025 election.
At the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections' new location at E. 18th Street and Superior Avenue, a steady stream of cars dropped off vote-by-mail ballots in the secure drop box in the parking lot.
"We want to make sure that people realize that if they still have a vote-by-mail ballot that they have to get to the post office today," said the Board of Elections' Mike West.
Vote-by-mail ballots needed to be postmarked by Monday, Nov. 3.
"If you wake up in the morning and realize you haven't returned your vote-by-mail ballot, you must take it to the Board of Elections," he said.
You cannot take it to your polling place, as they will not accept it.
In addition to those utilizing the drop box on Monday, we found a number of people hoping to vote early in person, unaware of the 2023 change in state law that eliminated early in-person voting on the day before the election to allow BOEs more time to prepare for the election itself.
"I didn't know," said Gary Colson of Cleveland, who wasn't deterred.
"All I know is I want to vote, I want to get my vote in," he said of his plan to vote at his polling place in the morning. "I'm going to go to Maple Leaf, where I live at and then I'm going to go early in the morning and I'm going to cast my vote," he said.
Knowing your voting location is important, and if you are a voter in Cleveland, it's best to double-check on the Board of Elections' website. That's because when city council had to redraw the ward boundaries this year, due to the elimination of two council seats, that meant the BOE had to redraw the precinct lines to fit within the new ward boundaries. That may mean the polling place you've gone to for years may have changed.
Such was the case in the old Ward 17 on Cleveland's west side, which is now Ward 15. News 5 found earlier this year that a number of voters had their polling place changed. So some who had voted at Our Lady of Angels are now voting at St. Mel's and vice versa. Locations that are about a mile and a half apart. Voters were notified twice by mail in the spring and prior to this election.
"Everybody should have received a voter's guide several weeks ago," said West. "It does have your voting location, your ward, your precinct and all of your other district information. It's a really good piece of reference material that we send to every household with registered voters prior to each election."
Checking your polling place is easy: go to this website, click the "find your polling location" box, and follow the prompts. It will tell you all your key voting information, and it's not limited to the voter alone.
"So if you're just curious because you're trying to help out a family member or a friend again, you can do that," said Anthony Perlatti, Director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. "Because it's not pulling up your individual record, it's pulling up the geographic locations of your house and your poll place."
