Ohio can reduce costs and increase voter convenience by creating a permanent absentee voting list, on which voters can sign up to automatically be sent an absentee ballot for each election without having to re-apply. States experience significant savings by cutting down on the requests they need to process.

Creating an online portal for voters to request an absentee ballot that feeds directly into the voter registration system is an important step to help verify addresses, collect contact information, and to remove administrative steps to process a large amount of requests. We encourage an integrated process that allows new voters to register and for current voters to make changes to their address and make requests for ballots in a seamless manner.

Guaranteeing prepaid postage is a voter-centric reform that also removes an economic barrier to voting.

Expanding the use of secure drop boxes as another method for voters to return ballots is a cost-effective way to reduce strain on the postal system, and boxes are sometimes a preferred method by voters who want an extra bit of reassurance that their ballot makes it to the elections office on time. We highly recommend including provisions to allow for ballots to be received at polling places, vote centers, and drop boxes, as well as other locations deemed necessary by the clerk.

We highly recommend creating vote centers, or polling locations where any voter in the county can vote. This is a way to streamline the system so over time, as the share of the vote cast by mail increases, counties can have fewer overall polling locations, while individual voters will have more voting location options.

Accepting ballots with Election Day postmarks is a best practice to ensure that voters are given all options to vote their ballot in a timely manner. Current law allows for ballots accepted if postmarked by the day before the election, but accepting Election Day postmarks is estimated in most jurisdictions to decrease ballot rejection rates by half. We recommend that not only does a state allow the physical postmark on a ballot, but also to integrate into the USPS system for electronic postmarks to serve as validation that a ballot was mailed on time.

Ballot tracking software such as Ballot Scout or Ballot TRACE can be a very cost effective tool to improve Ohio’s current ballot tracking system. An expanded notification system helps keep rejection rates low and increases voter confidence and participation.

Ohio’s data infrastructure would be further improved by implementing automatic and same day voter registration. Both of these would ensure that any eligible resident who wants to cast a ballot in an election can, regardless of whether they submitted their registration forms on time. Additionally, Ohio has a great opportunity to reach for the gold standard of post-election security by requiring risk limiting audits for all counties.

Processing mail ballots to get them ready for counting before election day will help Ohio get faster election results. Ohio has an unspecified period of preprocessing, which the state should expand to at least 7 days before election day.