Eight million applications for mail-in ballots have been sent out to Ohio voters, with early voting beginning on Oct. 6. Military and overseas voting starts on Friday. All that was in process before this week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision rejecting an executive order to restrict mail-in voting by President Trump, who has voted by mail twice this year.
And the ruling will have no effect on Ohio's election system or voters, according to the state's chief elections official.
Trump's executive order, aimed to start before this year's midterm elections, would have made big changes in no-excuse absentee voting by mail, which has been in place in Ohio since 2005. It would have mandated the U.S. Postal Service only deliver ballots with unique barcodes for each voter, which would have been costly and time-consuming for elections officials. It also would have required all states to provide the USPS with their mail voter lists, and delivery of ballots could be blocked if voters weren't on the list or the ballot envelopes didn't meet certain specifications.
"We're ready to go. Ohioans will, as they have for decades, have three convenient choices for voting," said Secretary of State Frank LaRose. "You can vote by mail from the comfort of home. You can vote early for four weeks leading up to Election Day, or you can vote on Tuesday, Nov. 3."
When asked if the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling rejecting the executive order will have any effect on Ohio voters, LaRose replied, “Not at all. Not at all. And, candidly, I wasn't surprised.”
LaRose had said after Trump issued the order in March that "the statute that Ohio has in place has been working now for many decades, and that's what we're going to continue to follow.” This week, while LaRose wouldn't speak out against Trump’s unfounded claims that mail-in voting is corrupt, he continued to maintain that Ohio does things differently and more accurately than other states.
"The process that we have in Ohio already addresses the concerns that many have. And to be very candid, those concerns are valid in other states," LaRose said. "They're states that don't do the work that we do to maintain accurate voter rolls. They don't do the work that we do to validate identity before they mail out absentee ballots."
But LaRose also said he doesn’t think Trump’s criticism against mail-in voting will erode the trust most people have in it.
"Unfortunately, we live in a time where there's this information ecosystem that can be kind of confusing. You're hearing concerns that are raised about other states because too many people get their news from social media or from some cable news program that's sort of meant to stir up anxiety in some cases to keep the eyeballs on the screen," LaRose said. "So, yeah, when something goes wrong in an election six states away, we find out about it. But that's not the way Ohio runs elections."
More than a million Ohioans voted early by mail in 2024.
LaRose made his comments following an event at Columbus' Mifflin High School, which was part of a tour of schools around Ohio designed to help students learn to use electronic voting machines. Students used the machines to vote for class officers, and LaRose swore in the winners.
