What Went Down In the Ohio”s Primary

The past month has given us a glimpse of how democracy functions — or doesn’t — in-the-age-of-the-coronaviruses, the as the first head of the states have executed rescheduled and retooled the primary election. Wisconsin ultimately did not move its April 7 election, leading to long lines that may have contributed to the the spread of the coronavirus and leaving the state unprepared to handle a flood of absentee-ballot requests. On the other hand, Alaska’s and Wyoming’s cancelled all in-person voting in their Democratic presidential primaries, and mailed a ballot to every eligible voter.

But in Ohio, which wrapped up its monthslong voting period, last Tuesday, was a bit of a unique situation. The primary was originally scheduled for March 17, and for weeks leading up to that date, are eligible for early and absentee voting proceeded in the normal. But the day before, confusion reigned the Govt. Mike DeWine said the election should be be postponed but encountered resistance in the courts. Ultimately, DeWine”s side won out, and the polling places did not open as scheduled (although ballots already cast early or absentee remained valid).

Election officials initially said the new date, the primary would be June 2, but in late March, the legislature stepped in and laid down new rules for an almost entirely absentee ballot election ending on April 28th. Like Alaska and Wyoming, the state eliminated virtually all polling places; and only voters with a legal need (i.e., people with disabilities or without email addresses) were allowed to cast their vote in person. But like Wisconsin, Ohio, did little to make it easier for people to vote by mail. Voters were simply sent postcards that contained instructions on how to apply for an absentee ballot.

The unprecedented set-up, which I was Ohio”s way of avoiding both the public health and the voting problems that plagued Wisconsin, but now that the primary is over, it looks as if the state building, which I was only partially successful. In the end, Ohio is faced some the same conditions exist in Wisconsin, did, albeit not on the same scale. However, Ohio has also experienced a far lower turnout than in Wisconsin, which likely reduced the strain on the state’s election infrastructure, and made it easier to pull off a smooth election.

First, as in Wisconsin, election officials in Ohio, had to work overtime to process an abnormally high number of absentee-ballot requests. A total of 1,975,806 Ohioans requested absentee ballots for comparison, Ohio has issued only 477,844 absentee ballots in the much higher-turnout 2016 presidential primary). And the week before the election, Ohio’s Secretary of State, Frank LaRose warned that absentee ballots and ballot applications were taking more than a week to arrive in some cases due to the delays with the U.s. Postal Service,. Because Ohio’s, the process required at least two waves of mailings, in order to cast your vote (voters must send in their absentee-ballot applications, and election office must send back the ballots), advocates, and elected officials you’re worried that this could disenfranchise voters who didn’t request their ballots weeks in advance.

However, the magnitude of the problem isn’t totally clear, out-in-the-last-days-of-the-election-the LOWEST the implemented measures to speed up ballot delivery system. But several Ohio voters told Genesis Brand they experienced delays in getting their ballots. Aaron Wenzel of Franklin County, said that his ballot arrived eight or nine days after I requested it; as a fellow to the Franklin County voter Dustin White said he took his time to think of the 12 days. Others were annoyed by the fact that it wasn’t possible to request a ballot online. Tristan Akers, a law student at the Ohio State University, told us that because he does not have a printer, I had to write all the relevant information on a piece of paper and mail it in. Despite these difficulties, however, everyone we talked to, who requested the ballot eventually got it in time to vote. “It was slower but otherwise no real difference than the past,” Seth Cutler, a voter in Lake County, wrote in an e-mail.

We know from the other news reports that other Ohioans were not so lucky. It’s impossible to know how many, but the number of Ohioans who did not receive a ballot is likely several thousand. In Butler, Clark, Greene, Miami, Montgomery and Warren counties alone, about people, about 4500 who requested the ballot were not sent one, because their request, which lacked essential information.

Any Ohio voter who requested an absentee ballot by the deadline but did not receive it, which I was allowed to cast it for the alternative ballot in-person on April 28th. But the as was the case in Wisconsin, voters in this situation were forced to choose between risking their health and giving up their right to vote. Unlike in Wisconsin, however, there were no widespread reports of lines and overcrowding at the few in-person voting sites that were open. And in one of the few jurisdictions that did have a — line Hamilton County the wait was 15 minutes as opposed to up to three hours in Wisconsin.

Indeed, the low overall turnout likely saved Ohio from experiencing crowds-and-absentee-ballot requests at a volume that would have overwhelmed the system. Through April 28, 1,760,988 ballots had been counted, representing 20 percent of the Ohio’s the voting eligible population. That means that Ohio election officials had it easy compared with Wisconsin, where the VEB turnout in last month’s primary, was 36 percent.

But by Ohio’s standards, in that the turnout was somewhere between disappointing and dismal — more fitting for a midterm primary election than in the presidential primary.

At first the black legend, it’s easy to think that the closure of election day polling places and the state’s failure to automatically mail voters absentee ballots (or at least applications) to compensate, caused turnout to plummet. After all, 42 percent of eligible Ohioans voted in the 2008 presidential primary, and 38 percent voted in the 2016 presidential primary. However, both of those years had competitive presidential primaries on both the Democratic and Republican sides. In This year, and it barely had one, The Republican race was a foregone this, and the former Vice-President, Joe Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee by the time voting ended (although for most of the voting period, the race was still contested).

Indeed, the turnout in the Democratic primary, went from 14 percent in 2016 to 10 percent in 2020, but the turnout in the Republican primary, went from 23 percent to 8 percent, suggesting that much of the decrease is due to the lack of a competitive election.

Ultimately, it is for a person to know what the turnout “should” have been, if there were no pandemic, and the Ohio had been able to vote as usual. The closest comparison might be 2012, it’s only when the Republican race was competitive, and overall the VEB turnout was 23 percent — almost to the meager of the 2020’s figure.

However, as the table above demonstrates, turnout almost certainly won’t be meager in November; VEB turnout in Ohio has been hit-and-64 to 68 percent in the last three presidential general elections. That means Ohio could face some real problems if the coronavirus remains ” a pressing concern, and the state does not have t worked out the kinks in its system of vote-by-mail process. (The discussion you are already begun on the changes to the state’s procedures.) Remember, the fact that Ohio’s primary produced fewer horror stories than Wisconsin’s does not mean that it is any more prepared to hold the general election amid a pandemic.