Lucas County Board of Elections prepares for absentee ballots

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - Putting the finishing touches on elections in this area. Ballot issues are in and candidates are set.

In Lucas County, officials are already looking at numerous absentee ballot requests and there’s a new plan for them.

Voting absentee by mail is getting more and more popular in Ohio. That’s why in Lucas County the Board of Elections and its staff are getting prepared. Which includes the staff doing much of that prep work for the ballots on its own.

“We’ve purchased the equipment. We just have not had a good experience with past vendors associated with getting it out into the mail. We have better control by doing it in-house. We have the equipment it’s just a matter of the people,” said Fritz Schoen, Lucas County Board of Elections board member.

To date, Lucas County has received more than 10,000 requests for absentee ballots. Processing them takes time but already the Board of Elections is using extra staff like seasonal employees to get all the work done for what’s expected to be a busy presidential election day.

“Every election is always going to have its challenges. We don’t know what’s going to be ahead of us but I’m very impressed with the team we have,” said Schoen.

If you don’t want to mail the ballot back every Ohio county has a ballot box drop off and despite some recent back and forth, the boxes will remain for this November election. They are monitored.

In Lucas County, there’s a live webcam.

“It’s got 24-hour surveillance through the website so any time of day you can see the traffic going by. It’s a live feed and it’s recorded so if anyone has concerns about the drop box, get online and watch it as long as you want,” said Schoen.

It’s also a good idea to look over the candidates and issues ahead of time. The presidential race will be there but so will lots of local issues that you’ll want to get familiar with ahead of time to move you through quicker.

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