Dec. 19—Ohio voters in future elections will need to make sure their mail-in ballots reach the Board of Elections before Election Day so they can be counted.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said he reluctantly signed a bill to eliminate the grace period for late-arriving ballots in Ohio.
DeWine told reporters that he thinks the grace period — which allows mail-in ballots to be counted in state and federal elections as long as they arrive within four days of the election and are postmarked at least one day before the election — is “reasonable” and “makes a lot of sense.”
“I would normally veto repealing the four-day grace period, and frankly, that’s what I would have liked to have done,” DeWine said.
He explained that he felt constrained by scheduling considerations. The U.S. Supreme Court has chosen to take up a case over the constitutionality of accepting federal ballots after Election Day, and DeWine said the case may not be decided until June, a month after Ohio’s May 2026 primary and about four months before the November general election.
DeWine said a June court ruling that Ohio’s grace period was unconstitutional would lead to “chaos” in Ohio’s elections.
The chain of events would allow May to include a grace period in the primaries but not the November general election. Alternatively, if the state wanted to preserve the grace period for the November election, Ohio would have to create two separate ballots, one for state questions that could use the grace period and one for federal questions that couldn’t use the grace period.
DeWine also said that if a court decision goes against the state, the Legislature would have little time to adjust its election rules to comply with federal law.
DeWine’s reasoning echoes that of Republican legislative leaders. It didn’t have much traction among state Democrats.
“No federal law was violated. The Supreme Court is reviewing a court case that may or may not (impact us),” Rep. Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, told House colleagues just before SB 293 passed. “Why would we want to preemptively change state law in order to have a process that works? One that is popular with all Ohio voters? Not just my constituents, but your constituents.”
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