CLEVELAND — Requesting a ballot to vote by mail in Ohio really couldn’t be easier, you may have been mailed an application to fill out and send back, you can go online and print one or you can literally create your own using a blank piece of paper and it will count as an official application provided, like grab a blank piece of paper and you include all the information needed.
It’s not a lot, a handful of things highlighted in yellow on the Board of Elections application or in gray on the Secretary of State's. But so far in Cuyahoga County, more than 5,000 voters have submitted invalid applications with something missing.
If you’re someone that doesn’t like to tell people your age, that is your right to withhold the information. However, if you want to vote by mail in the November election you have to put it on the form, it’s the second thing on there. So far more than 1,300 voters in Cuyahoga County have totally skipped it.
On top of that, more than 500 others put the wrong date down for their birthday. Most of them are not forgetful when it comes to the day they were born said Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Director Anthony Perlatti.
“A lot of times it's putting down the date they were filling out the form, so they'll put down today's date or they'll go 'oh yeah, November 8th, 2022.' No, that's the election, that's not your date of birth," she said.
So many people were doing this they even added a reminder to this year’s form, “Do not write today’s date.”
"So we try to make those little changes from lessons learned, what do we see here, those trends and we try to rectify them in an easy manner for the voter,” said Perlatti.
The other big mistake is people fail to include a form of ID, the last four digits of their social security number, driver's license number or several other options like a current utility bill, bank statement, government check or paycheck within the last 12 months.
Then, you have the roughly 400 people so far this year who filled out all of the information correctly and then forgot to sign it.
The good news is of the 5,000 invalid applications that have come into Cuyahoga County, more than half have already been corrected.
That's why, though leaving a phone number or email is optional, you probably should include it.
"We instructed the Boards of Elections to pick up the phone or get on the email and contact the voter,” said Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
If you forgot your birth date or something else they can't fix it over the phone, Perlatti said his staff can give you a heads up that they're sending a new application to you and why.
"And some choose at that point to turn it back in and get a vote by mail and some say you know what I'm just going to go to the polls or I'm going to go early in person,” he said.
The advantage of getting your applications for vote-by-mail ballots in as early as possible.
