© 2024 WYSO
Our Community. Our Nation. Our World.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Sec. of State LaRose visits Montgomery County Board of Elections, talks absentee voting

Garrett Reese
/
WYSO
Republican Sec. of State Frank LaRose speaking with reporters on Wednesday.

Early voting began in Ohio on Wednesday. Early that morning, all 88 Ohio county boards of elections opened their doors to early voters. So, Republican Sec. of State Frank LaRose visited the Montgomery County Board of Elections.

According to LaRose, over 812,000 absentee ballots were sent out in the mail Wednesday morning.

That’s a 4.4% increase from the last midterm election year in 2018.

“The more people that try it, the more people that realize what a convenient way it is to vote, whether it's early in-person here at the Board of Elections or whether it's as an absentee voter. So we've seen those numbers steadily climb,” LaRose said.

As absentee voting increases in popularity, LaRose said he wants voters to know that voting by mail is a safe way to cast a ballot. 5 county boards of elections officials agreed with LaRose on this earlier this month.

The Secretary of State’s website also has a page discussing how safe absentee voting is.

Last week, however, LaRose created a Public Integrity Division of his office. That’s a group of investigators who look into cases of potential voter fraud.

LaRose’s voter fraud task-force is similar to ones created in Republican led states across the county. They were created following Former President Donald Trump’s false claims about election security in the 2020 election.

LaRose said on Wednesday that elections in Ohio are safe and secure. His new Public Integrity Division does not mean there is voter fraud in Ohio.

“The bottom line is that voter fraud and voter suppression are exceedingly rare in Ohio, and this is how we keep it that way,” LaRose said.

0.0005% of the votes cast in the 2020 election in Ohio were potentially fraudulent according to state data.

To learn more about your absentee ballot or where your polling place is located, you can visit VoteOhio.gov.

Garrett is a WYSO intern and graduate of University of Dayton. He spent time covering the Dayton area with WDTN Channel 2 News after the 2019 Memorial Day Tornado outbreak. It was around this time that he began listening to NPR and fell in love with radio-based journalism. Garrett graduated from UD in May of 2021 with his Bachelor’s in Communications with a focus in journalism and graduated in May of 2022 with his Master’s. While not working at WYSO, Garrett is an avid reader, loves to play video games, and hanging out with his friends.