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Coronavirus Concerns Forcing Changes For Next Week's Primary

Secretary of State Frank LaRose at a morning press conference, along with Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton, Franklin County Board of Elections Director Ed Leonard and  Franklin County Public Health Commissioner Joe Mazzola.
Karen Kasler
Secretary of State Frank LaRose at a morning press conference, along with Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton, Franklin County Board of Elections Director Ed Leonard and Franklin County Public Health Commissioner Joe Mazzola.

Thousands of Ohio voters are finding out if they want to vote on election day, they’ll have to go to a new place to cast their ballots for the St. Patrick’s Day primary next week. The state is moving 128 polling places out of nursing homes and senior residential facilities because of concerns about spreading coronavirus to residents.

(NOTE: This story has been updated with a list of the new polling places.)

With a week to go before the primary, Secretary of State Frank LaRose said boards of elections will be able to move these polling places following the announcement of the first positive coronavirus cases in Ohio.

“We don’t want to overreact; we want to react smartly," LaRose said.

It’s not a lot of time, so Jen Miller with the League of Women Voters of Ohio said she’ll encourage early voting to those thousands of affected voters.

“Clearly it would be great to have more time, but how do we provide more time in this situation?” Miller said.

Mailings are going out to voters whose polling places are being moved. They can request a ballot by mail before Saturday – but it has to be postmarked on Monday or dropped off at the board of elections on Tuesday.

A full list of the new polling place locations is here.

People who live in those facilities are affected too.

“Those residents expected that they were going to vote on election day, that they were just going to walk down to the community space in their facility and they were going to cast their vote," said Franklin County Board of Elections Director Ed Leonard. He said his office is working with the facilities to make sure those residents will be able to vote.

And LaRose also said he directed boards of elections to start communicating a message to an estimated 35,000 poll workers: “It will be a safe environment on election day. It is safe to be a poll worker.”

But LaRose is also trying to recruit new poll workers to replace ones who no longer want to work.

LaRose said because so many of the 3,658 polling places are at schools, it’s impractical to move them, but schools could close if they’re concerned.

LaRose also said voting machines at all polling places will be wiped down, and Miller said hand sanitizer will be available for voters.

Copyright 2020 The Statehouse News Bureau. To see more, visit The Statehouse News Bureau.

Karen is a lifelong Ohioan who has served as news director at WCBE-FM, assignment editor/overnight anchor at WBNS-TV, and afternoon drive anchor/assignment editor in WTAM-AM in Cleveland. In addition to her daily reporting for Ohio’s public radio stations, she’s reported for NPR, the BBC, ABC Radio News and other news outlets. She hosts and produces the Statehouse News Bureau’s weekly TV show “The State of Ohio”, which airs on PBS stations statewide. She’s also a frequent guest on WOSU TV’s “Columbus on the Record”, a regular panelist on “The Sound of Ideas” on ideastream in Cleveland, appeared on the inaugural edition of “Face the State” on WBNS-TV and occasionally reports for “PBS Newshour”. She’s often called to moderate debates, including the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s Issue 3/legal marijuana debate and its pre-primary mayoral debate, and the City Club of Cleveland’s US Senate debate in 2012.
Karen Kasler
Contact Karen at 614/578-6375 or at kkasler@statehousenews.org.