Deadline to register to vote in the Nov. General Election is October 9

Sec­re­tary of State Jon Husted is remind­ing all Ohioans that the dead­line to reg­is­ter to vote or update your infor­ma­tion for the 2012 Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tion is next Tues­day, Octo­ber 9^th. The Sec­re­tary of State’s office and all 88 county boards of elec­tions will be open until 9:00 pm on Tues­day to accept new and updated registrations.

Update Your Address Online

Instead of using the paper form, more than 79,000 Ohio vot­ers have already used Sec­re­tary Husted’s new online change of address tool. This new ser­vice is avail­able at www.MyOhioVote.com, and will help vot­ers meet their pri­mary respon­si­bil­i­ties of being reg­is­tered at their cur­rent address 30 days prior to the Gen­eral Elec­tion (Octo­ber 9, 2012) so they can vote a reg­u­lar bal­lot rather than a pro­vi­sional bal­lot. This ser­vice is not only con­ve­nient for vot­ers but also reduces the man­ual data entry at Ohio’s boards of elec­tions, sav­ing time and improv­ing the accu­racy of Ohio’s voter rolls.

Elec­tion Bal­lot Issues
Infor­ma­tion regard­ing the 1,217 races and 1,800 issues on the bal­lot, includ­ing school and local tax levies, bond issues and char­ter amend­ments are now avail­able online.

In-Person Absen­tee Voting

In-person absen­tee vot­ing began Octo­ber 2, 2012. The hours and times are uni­form statewide and are as fol­lows: 8:00 am to 5:00 pm the first three weeks; and 8:00 am to 7:00 pm the last two weeks. All boards of elec­tions are closed on Mon­day, Octo­ber 8, 2012 in obser­vance of a state hol­i­day and open until 9:00 pm on Octo­ber 9 both for vot­ing and to accept last minute registration.

Absen­tee Vot­ing by Mail

Nearly 6.9 mil­lion Ohio vot­ers were, for the first time, sent an absen­tee bal­lot appli­ca­tion in the mail. Vot­ers should com­plete all required fields, sign and return appli­ca­tions to their county board of elec­tions. It must be received by county boards of elec­tions no later than noon on Novem­ber 3, 2012. Forms can also be down­loaded from the Sec­re­tary of State’s voter infor­ma­tion web­site: www.MyOhioVote.com. As of last Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 28, over 920,000 vote by mail requests have been received.

Boards began mail­ing out absen­tee bal­lots on Octo­ber 2, 2012, to those who requested them. Vot­ers must com­plete, sign and seal their voted bal­lots, tak­ing care to pro­vide the required infor­ma­tion, includ­ing proper iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. Voted bal­lots must be post­marked the day before Elec­tion Day and received no later than the 10th day after the elec­tion (Novem­ber 16, 2012). Absen­tee bal­lots may also be deliv­ered in per­son to boards of elec­tions no later than the close of the polls on Elec­tion Day. They may not be returned at polling locations.

Get Elec­tions Updates and Ohio’s Vir­tual Vot­ing Sticker

Ohio vot­ers are encour­aged to link with “OhioSOSHusted” on Face­book and Twit­ter to get elec­tions infor­ma­tion and updates through­out the year. Here they can also get a vir­tual vot­ing sticker badge to let their friends and fol­low­ers know they’ve par­tic­i­pated in the elec­tion, whether they chose to cast their bal­lots by mail or in per­son. Face­book users sim­ply need to “like” Ohio Sec­re­tary of State Jon Husted’s offi­cial Face­book page to “wear” a vir­tual sticker on their wall. Twit­ter users may share their vot­ing badge by vis­it­ing the Sec­re­tary of State’s web­site.

Elec­tion Day Voting

Polls are open 6:30 am to 7:30 pm on Elec­tion Day. Vot­ers choos­ing to head to the polls on Elec­tion Day need to remem­ber to bring the proper form of ID and know their polling place and precinct. Vot­ers can check their polling place and precinct and get other impor­tant vot­ing infor­ma­tion by vis­it­ing www.MyOhioVote.com.

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Oct 6 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.