Election officials reject 571 ballots cast in 2026 Lorain County general election

SHEFFIELD TWP — The Lorain County Board of Elections voted Thursday to reject 571 ballots cast in the 2026 general election that didn't follow the rules or meet state election standards. They did so during a meeting at which Elections Director Lisette Gracia and Deputy Director Jim Kramer summarized a staff review of 21,358 total absentee ballots and 2,453 provisional ballots cast. Only one attempt at an intentionally fraudulent ballot was found out of nearly 128,000 cast, election officials said. It was an absentee ballot purporting to be from a resident of a nursing home, but the signature of the voter that the Board of Elections had on file did not match the signature on the ballot and the legitimate voter had already cast their ballot. The potentially fraudulent ballot was flagged and never counted. The county Board of Elections voted unanimously Thursday to send the matter to local and state authorities for investigation of possible intentional voter fraud. Absentee ballots Absentee ballots allow voters to vote by mail or in person before Election Day. They are not automatically mailed out and must be requested, according to the Ohio Secretary of State's Office. The board voted to accept 99.7 percent of absentee ballots cast in the Nov. 3 election. It rejected 62 out of 21,358 total absentee ballots cast, or 0.3 percent. Of the 62 rejected, 28 ballots did not include proper voter ID. Twenty-three of those voters incorrectly wrote down their Ohio driver's license, state ID or Social Security numbers on their ballots, transposed, eliminated or incorrectly recorded digits, board officials said. Eight ballots were rejected because they did not include a tearable stub state law says must be attached to the ballot. Ten ballots did not include a mandatory ID envelope. Fourteen ballots were returned without a required signature on the ID envelope. Lastly, two ballots were rejected because they were returned with a signature that didn't match those on file with the Board of Elections. Both of those ballots were referred to the Lorain County Prosecutor's Office and the Ohio Election Integrity Commission for investigation of possible voter fraud. A further 63 absentee ballots were rejected because they were not received by the 7:30 p.m. deadline on Election Day. Provisional ballots "A provisional ballot is used when there's uncertainty about a voter's eligibility," the Secretary of State's Office says on its website. "The ballot looks the same as a regular one, but it's set aside until election officials confirm that you're eligible to vote and voted in the correct precinct. Once verified, your vote is counted in the official results." Prospective Lorain County voters cast 2,453 ballots determined to be provisional. The Board of Elections rejected 509, or 21 percent, for not following the rules: - 300 ballots were cast by voters who were not registered to vote in the state of Ohio at least 30 days before the election. You must be eligible to vote, be registered at least 30 days prior to an election and keep your registration updated and current in order to vote. - 166 voters failed to provide at least one form of unexpired photo identification, whether an Ohio driver's license, state ID card, interim ID, passport or U.S. military ID card. The vast majority of voters whose ballots were rejected provided an expired ID or didn't bring ID at all. One non-citizen tried to vote with a non-citizen ID. The board referred that cast to the Prosecutor's Office and Election Integrity Commission. - 15 voters had their provisional ballots rejected because they voted early in person (9) or absentee-by-mail (6), then still went to the polls on Election Day and tried to vote. You can't do that, board members said. - 14 voted in the wrong polling location and wrong precinct. Seven voters provided incomplete or invalid addresses, three failed to sign their provisional ballot envelope, three didn't put their date of birth on the provisional ballot envelope and one voter's data didn't match data on file with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Certification and tunout The board will meet again at 3 p.m. Tuesday at its offices, 1985 N. Ridge Road, to certify the final results of the election. The only race close enough to require a recount is Issue 2, the Clearview School District's 3.91-mill levy for school operations. At the end of Election Day, the levy was failing by 13 votes, with 795 against to 808 for it, according to unofficial results. An automatic recount is triggered when the difference in votes is less than half of 1 percent of all votes cast in the race. The result and final tally of votes on that issue will be announced Tuesday. Lorain County had 217,346 registered voters on Election Day. Officials said 60.5 percent of them cast ballots. Contact Dave O'Brien at 440-329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.