Voters grow restless watching mail for absentee ballots to arrive

SHEFFIELD TWP. — Jennie Stauffer was worried Wednesday, watching her mailbox. No absentee ballot had arrived, eight days after state election officials swore it had been sent. "I've been watching and waiting, and checking on the status," said Stauffer, of Oberlin. No ballot appeared in Patricia Rea's mailbox in Sheffield Village, either, and she had strong feelings about why. "I feel that there's something going on. There's something amiss," she said, placing the blame on the U.S. Postal Service. Rea said her brother and son had also not received ballots, and she suspected partisan interference is at work this fall. Because of health problems, Rea has voted by mail for years. She said she doesn't want to stand in line at the polls — her body might not be up to it — so voting absentee is key to having her voice heard. Many other residents all over Lorain County took to social media Wednesday, saying they were alarmed that their ballots hadn't yet materialized. Among them was Nikki Cvetkovic of Amherst, who said she got tired of waiting and went to the Board of Elections office in Sheffield Township to vote early in person instead. She wrote that she had to sign an affidavit that her ballot hadn't been received, and promise to void it and send it back if it did show up. Art Moody of Elyria got his ballot, but didn't want to take chances slipping the completed forms back in the mail. Instead, he used the elections board's new drive-through drop box, which was approved Tuesday to help handle the more than 63,000 absentee ballots that have been requested so far. "I wanted to make sure they get it in, and I don't like standing in long lines," Moody said. He conjured images of long lines and broken-down voting machines across the United States during the 2016 presidential election, and he said he worries the pressures of 2020 will lead to similar problems on Election Day. Paul Adams, director of the Lorain County Board of Elections, wants to make sure it doesn't come to that. He said residents shouldn't panic if they haven't gotten their ballots yet by mail — it could take to the end of the week for the initial batch to be delivered. A massive number of ballots were dropped into the mail stream at the same time across Ohio, he said. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose's office said it has received 2.47 million absentee applications so far, and 193,021 votes already have been cast in person, dwarfing the 64,312 total in 2016. A news release issued Tuesday by LaRose's office said it is holding the USPS accountable. The mail service has committed to daily "all clear" checks at sorting facilities, collection bin checks for ballots, hand-to-hand delivery of election mail and tracking deliveries to boards of elections. Election mail also won't be sent to the USPS Detroit Regional Distribution Center, but will be kept in-state. Adams said he's been in touch with the local USPS liaison about how many ballots are being mailed. "At this point, we're just in regular communication. I haven't heard any issues on their end," he said. There have been issues elsewhere in Ohio, however, including incorrect ballots that went out out in Franklin County and delivery delays in Summit County due to problems with a printing company. There is no indication of any such conditions affecting Lorain County, Adams said. He is double-checking with the printer that handles Lorain County's ballots, and all files needed to print those ballots were uploaded more than a week before Oct. 6 to be safe, he said. Adams said he also tried to head off problems at the pass by driving ballots directly to the Cleveland mail sorting hub, rather than mailing them from local post offices. "At this point, I will say we know tens of thousands of people have received their ballots," he said. "As you can see, they are dropping them off here." Absentee drop-off boxes were busy outside the Sheffield Township elections office. Andrew Irizarry, a county elections volunteer, said many residents took advantage of the drive-through ballot box on Clinton Avenue to make sure their vote was counted. By 1 p.m. on the first day it was available, hundreds had already used it to cast their ballots, he said. "It doesn't stop," he said during a brief break in traffic. "If it stops, it's for less than five minutes." The line for in-person voting was also busy, though not nearly as much as it had been when early voting started Oct. 6. Between 20 and 30 people waited outside for their turn through the day, with wait times of around 20 minutes. Contact Jason Hawk at (440) 329-7122 or news@lcnewspapers.com.