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Early ballot requests rising
Partisans pushing voters to use expanded absentee procedure
The Columbus Dispatch
September 26, 2006
By Mark Niquette
By the time the polls open on Nov. 7, more Ohioans than ever already may have voted. That's because county boards of elections are seeing a surge in requests for early ballots, as political parties and other groups push their supporters to use Ohio's new no-fault absentee law and "lock down" their votes. And Democrats are turning to a big gun: 2004 presidential nominee John Kerry is coming to Columbus on Oct. 3 — the first day of absentee voting — for two events to encourage people to vote early. After one rally at Ohio State University, Democrats, ahead in the polls in most statewide races, plan to take voters to the Franklin County Board of Elections so they can request and cast absentee ballots. "We are trying to bank our own votes at this point and get liked-minded voters to vote," said Randy Borntrager, a spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party. Voters previously had to provide a reason for casting an absentee ballot, such as being 62 or older or away on Election Day. But the legislature changed the law last year to allow anyone to vote absentee without giving a reason. For this first major election since the change, Franklin County has received about 40,000 requests for absentee ballots — far more that it normally does at this point before a gubernatorial election, Director Matthew Damschroder said. The final number should top the record 70,000 absentee votes cast in Franklin County for the 2004 presidential election, he said. Cuyahoga County has received more than 35,000 requests so far, and a record number also is expected there this fall, Director Michael Vu said. Election officials cite three major reasons for the interest in no-fault absentee ballots among voters: political parties and special-interest groups are encouraging them to do it; they are concerned about electronic touch-screen voting machines or long lines at the polls on Election Day; or they just like the convenience. "They won't have to worry about putting voting on their calendars along with work, going to the grocery store or soccer practice," Damschroder said. Officials said part of the increase in applications can be attributed to the fact that at least three county boards of elections — including Franklin and Cuyahoga, the state's two largest counties — sent absentee-ballot applications to all registered voters in their counties. The Ohio Democratic and Republican parties and various special-interest groups also are sending out applications. State Democrats mailed a flier recently to registered Democrats and other targeted voters with GOP gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell, Gov. Bob Taft, President Bush and U.S. Sen. Mike De-Wine depicted on postage stamps with the message, "You don't have to wait until Election Day to send them a message." Jennifer Brunner, the Democratic candidate for secretary of state, also created the Web site "avoidtheline.org" to explain and promote no-fault absentee voting. The Ohio GOP, in turn, mailed a flier with an absentee application this week urging Republicans to exercise their freedom to vote early because "those on the other side of the aisle are hoping you give up and don't vote. Don't fall into their trap." John McClelland, spokesman for the Ohio GOP, declined to discuss the party's strategy for no-fault absentee voting but said it has changed how campaigns are run. "The old traditional model of waiting until the last two weeks and throwing money on TV (ads) doesn't work if voting starts 35 days prior to the actual election," he said. Meanwhile, although absentee ballots by law must be ready by next Tuesday, some uncertainty remains about whether counties have the legal authority to print them right now. Blackwell's office hasn't certified all of the five statewide issues submitted for the Nov. 7 ballot, but they still could qualify depending on the outcome of legal challenges and whether enough valid signatures are confirmed in the next several days. The position of Blackwell's office is that counties should print the absentee ballots now with all five issues, and if one or more ultimately don't qualify, officials can inform voters that votes for those issues won't be counted, spokesman James Lee said. But because not all of the issues have been certified, Damschroder has asked for a legal opinion and said Blackwell's office should issue a directive that clarifies what counties should do. Lee said the office did that when Blackwell certified the form of the state ballot Sept. 8. In any case, elections officials are renewing their calls for the legislature to approve much earlier deadlines for filing statewide ballot issues. "This is a lesson learned and a reason why we want deadlines moved up," said Steve Harsman, president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. The process was delayed this year in part because of the crush of petition signatures that county elections boards had to check for the statewide issues, as well as legal challenges to some issues. Blackwell's office also delayed sending out the petitions to the counties for about two weeks in August while they were copied to fulfill publicrecords requests for them, Lee said. mniquette@dispatch.com
