Very sound advice for Ohio voters, courtesy of Kay at Balloon Juice:
If you request an absentee ballot in Ohio your name is marked on a poll book in your precinct as having done so. Thus, if you fill out an application for an absentee ballot and then DON’T VOTE absentee, but instead decide to vote in person, you are going to get a provisional ballot on election day, because they have to assume you voted absentee until they open the absentee ballots and discover that you did not.
You DO NOT want a provisional ballot if you can possibly avoid one. DO NOT submit the request for an absentee ballot unless you plan on voting absentee.
I’m in the camp that says this is going to be horribly confusing to people, and is another bad idea from Mr. Husted.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/...
From the Cincinnati Community Press:
Ohio’s chief elections officer proudly hails a new program under which every registered voter will receive an absentee ballot application as a step that will “turn their kitchen table into a voting booth” in this fall’s presidential election.
Now all voters have to do is make sure that their ballots don’t end up – to stick with Secretary of State Jon Husted’s analogy – going down the electoral garbage disposal.
Husted’s plan marks the first time in Ohio history that all of the state’s nearly 8 million registered voters will receive absentee applications. But as is often the case in politics, it has drawn both widespread, bipartisan praise over further easing of the voting process and concerns over potential downsides.
http://communitypress.cincinnati.com/...
Kay asks that you kindly spead the word regarding these new rules for Ohio absentee ballots.