CLEVELAND — On election day in Ohio, the first results we see come from vote-by-mail ballots.
THE CLAIM
So today we’re VERIFYING the answer to this common question: Are vote-by-mail ballots counted before election day in Ohio?
THE SOURCES
To answer this question, we consulted the sources:
- Ohio Revised Code Section 3509.06
- Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Community Outreach Department Manager Mike West
THE EXPLANATION
The relevant section of the Ohio Revised Code reads in part:
"The board of elections shall process absent voter's ballots before the time for counting those ballots, but the board shall not tabulate or count the votes on those ballots before that time."
To clarify what it means to process vote-by-mail ballots, we checked in with Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Community Outreach Department Manager Mike West, who told us this:
"We are allowed to begin scanning ballots before the election. Because there can be hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots, we need to start scanning those before election day, because if we had to wait until election day to scan those ballots, it would take several days, even on our high speed scanners. So the law allows us to begin scanning, but not tabulating, in advance of the election."
As for when the votes on those ballots get counted, Mike explained:
"We tabulate them when the polls close at 7:30 on election night. That’s why if you’re looking for the results on our website, the first election results you’ll see come from the absentee ballots."
THE ANSWER
So we can VERIFY the answer to the question, Are vote-by-mail ballots counted before election day in Ohio?, is no. They’re not counted until the moment the polls close everywhere across the state.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
If you want to track the status of your vote by mail ballot, you can visit this link to do that on Ohio’s Secretary of State website.