COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — As early and mail-in voting is underway for Nov. 5’s general election, Secretary of State Frank LaRose says Ohio is home to one of the most secure election systems in the nation.
Ohio is “the gold standard for elections administration” because the state’s system is run at the local level by 88 county boards of elections who are each overseen by two Republicans and two Democrats, LaRose said in a new video outlining his office’s initiatives to ensure Ohio’s elections are secure. The secretary explained that, unlike in other states, these partisan officials work with one another to hold each other accountable.
“In Ohio, we take pride in making it both easy to vote and hard to cheat. That’s why I’ve made election integrity a top priority for our administration,” said LaRose in the recorded video. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop people from spreading conspiracies, fake news, and otherwise false information.”
Ohio’s voting machines are under bipartisan surveillance, and they’re kept in storage systems with dual locks that require a Republican key and a Democratic key to open, LaRose said. The state also boasts a bipartisan process called logic and accuracy testing, a battery of tests conducted by Republican and Democratic election officials to make sure that every single piece of equipment works properly before it’s deployed to voting locations.
In the secretary’s office, they have a bipartisan board that certifies every voting system in the state. LaRose said this starts with guaranteeing that no voting machine can ever be connected to the internet — no Wi-Fi, no Bluetooth, no LAN connection, strictly air gapped and not accessible to the outside world.
“Our bipartisan teams in each county also conduct what we call a post-election audit. This means hand counting the paper ballots to compare them to the election day results and assuring accuracy,” said LaRose. “During the time I’ve been in this office, we’ve had over 99.9% accuracy when you compare the electronic results to those hard-copy paper ballots.”
LaRose also launched “one of the first in the nation election integrity units,” a full-time investigative team with people with election experience and law enforcement experience devoted to solely focusing on election law enforcement.” Many other states are now following the state’s lead with this investigative capacity to go after and refer for prosecution any election crime that occurs, LaRose said.
The secretary has also implemented an extensive audit of the voters rolls, removing thousands of inactive or ineligible voters, and has adopted Ohio’s first mandatory citizenship check on all new voter registrations. These ongoing processes is why Ohio voters can have confidence their ballot will be counted accurately, he said.
“Ohio has one of the most secure and successful election systems in the nation,” said LaRose.
Those wishing to vote early can cast ballots at county boards of elections most days leading up to the weekend before Election Day, so long as they come with photo identification. Here’s the remaining days when you can vote early:
- Oct. 21-25: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Oct. 26: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Oct. 27: 1 to 5 p.m.
- Oct. 28: 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
- Oct. 29: 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
- Oct. 30 – Nov. 1: 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
- Nov. 2: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Nov. 3: 1 to 5 p.m.
Those who are still wishing to vote by mail can request an absentee ballot up to seven days before the election, which is Oct. 29, but must return it by mail or in person to their county board. Learn more about early in-person and mail-in voting here.
There are many resources on the secretary’s website, that will make your trip to the polls easier:
