Medina County Board of Elections accepts and rejects absentee and provisional ballots from 2022 general election

MEDINA — The Medina County Board of Elections went through and accepted and rejected provisional and absentee ballots from the recent November election during their board meeting on Tuesday. Provisional ballots are used when it is uncertain whether someone is eligible to vote at that time. Director of the Medina County Board of Elections Carol Lawler said there were 1,244 provisional ballots made during the election and about 85 percent of those ballots were already determined to be valid and approved. The rest of the ballots had to be accepted or rejected by the board of elections for different reasons. One group that was rejected were the 91 ballots cast by people who were not registered to vote. Ballots were also rejected because they lacked identifying information like an address, signature, driver's license number or the last digits of a Social Security number, among other causes. Many absentee ballots were rejected by the board as well. For instance, there were 64 ballots that were sent into the board of elections office too late. In the state of Ohio, absentee ballots that are mailed have to be postmarked by the day before the election to be counted. Other rejected ballots did not have a signature included or the signature did match others on file. Later at the meeting, the board of elections decided to conduct the audit for the 2022 general election by polling location rather than by precinct or individual voting machine. The audit will consist of bipartisan teams checking votes by hand for a certain number of polling locations to make sure that those numbers match the unofficial results. The board will certify the results of the November election at their next meeting on Nov. 29 where they will likely sign off on the final numbers. Contact reporter Madisyn Woodring at (330) 721-4049 or mwoodring@medina-gazette.com.