This year’s annual picnic, held at Shady Hollow Pavilion, was attended by old and new League members and potential League members. As usual, the potluck dinner was delicious as it was diverse. Our speakers for the evening were Mark Jackson and Sarah Skapin, Community Outreach of the Summit County Board of Elections (BOE). We heard the most up to date information on the following topics:

Voter ID requirements

Voter registration

Voting absentee

Becoming a poll worker

Even though League members tend to be fairly well informed on election issues, those who attended had plenty of questions for our guest speakers. 

A few of the key points discussed:

There will be open voter registration conducted by the Summit County BOE on October 3, 4, and 6, which is the final day to register in order to vote in the general election on November 4.

There will be NO absentee voting at the Board of Elections this year. Their facility was completely overwhelmed by the turnout to vote absentee in the last election, so early in-person voting has been moved to The Job Center at 1040 East Tallmadge Avenue for this election. There is plenty of parking, as well as a bus stop right in front. The BOE is anticipating upwards of 100,000 absentee voters for this election.

Absentee voting begins on September 30, 35 days prior to Election Day. The last day to apply to vote absentee is Saturday, November 1. By law, absentee ballots must be received by the BOE not later than 7:30 pm on election night. You may remember that last election some 200 absentee ballots were not delivered by the Post Office by the deadline, so even though the ballots were postmarked in time, they were not counted. Please remember that the law has not been changed, so if you are unsure your ballot will be delivered in time, it may be best to take it to the Board of Elections yourself.

 Another item of importance to LWVAA is that voter registration forms must be returned to the Board of Elections within 10 days of being filled out or they become invalid. If you register voters on behalf of League, be sure to deliver them to the Board of Elections in a timely fashion. Additionally, undated registration forms will no longer be accepted, so please make certain that forms are filled out completely.

 There has been one change in voter ID requirements: while a military ID is still an acceptable form of ID to present at the polls, it is no longer required to show the service person’s current address as it was in the past. This change was necessitated by the fact that military ID’s have never shown the service person’s address, which resulted in some confusion at the polls in the last election.

 If you have any other questions regarding voter ID, voter registration, or absentee voting, and for a complete list of acceptable identification for voting, procedures for voting absentee, etc., please visit the Summit County Board of Elections website at www.summitcountyboe.com or the Ohio Secretary of State’s website at www.sos.state.oh.us.