Tagged: Provisional Ballots

Almost 1.9 million Ohioans voted with an absentee ballot in last year's election - a record number for the perennial presidential battleground state.

Secretary of State Jon Husted released reports Wednesday showing that roughly 33 percent of the more than 5.6 million votes cast in the November election were from absentee ballots.  The early ballots accounted for about 30 percent of the overall votes cast in 2008.

Voters in Ohio can cast an absentee ballot early by mail or in person without giving any reason.

Ohio's elections chief says a federal judge's demand to come up with a new order regarding provisional ballots is even worse than a previous court demand.

Lawyers for Secretary of State Jon Husted have complained to a federal appeals court that the judge changed rules for provisional ballots after the election but before the ballots are counted beginning this weekend.

Husted's office asked the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday to reverse the decision by federal judge Algenon Marbley.

Ohio's elections chief wants to see a judge's order requiring the state to count certain flawed provisional ballots thrown out.

In a filing Friday, Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted said the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling last week made the consent decree unnecessary and it should be vacated.

The decree requires election officials to count votes cast provisionally using the last four digits of a voter's Social Security number then made defective by poll worker error.