Sophie Albrecht couldn’t wait until Election Day to vote.
So, like 57,231 Summit County residents so far this general election, she requested an absentee ballot be mailed to her home in West Akron.
But like a few other local voters, the instructions that came with the early voting ballot caused enough confusion to question whether her vote would count.
“It sounds so simple but when you open up the ballots it doesn’t tell you to use pen, pencil, crayon or punch it out with a toothpick,” said Albrecht, who reached a “very pleasant” person by phone at the Summit County Board of Elections.
“They said use pen or pencil. But you almost feel a little silly making the call,” said Albrecht, who has maintained an active voter registration status since 1976 and once ran for public office.
The Beacon Journal has received about a dozen calls or emails from voters raising concerns about early voting. These concerns come after hundreds of mail-in votes were discounted last year and a major-party candidate called this year’s election rigged.
Proper postage
A caller from Macedonia, who filled out and dropped off her absentee ballot at a post office, asked why her daughter paid 68 cents for postage and she only paid 47 cents.
Albrecht also ran into the postage discrepancy. She was told by another pleasant person at the post office that 47 cents would cover the postage, but she pitched in the extra 21 cents per the instructions attached to the ballot.
Asked about the differing rates, Summit County Board of Elections Director Joe Masich said trust the post office, which weighs the envelopes to apply proper postage.
Letters weighing up to an ounce cost 47 cents. But because some voters are stuffing envelopes with utility bills and other acceptable forms of identification, the envelopes may weigh up to 2 ounces, costing 68 cents.
There are two ways to avoid confusion: Have the ballot envelope metered at the post office or hand deliver it to an early-voting site hosted by a county board of elections.
If you’ve already mailed your vote from home, don’t fret. The U.S. Postal Service is promising extra care.
“If a ballot is mistakenly mailed with the incorrect postage, the ballot is still delivered to the board of elections,” USPS spokesman David Van Allen said. “The Postal Service resolves short paid postage differences with the board of elections after the election.”
If postmarked before Election Day and received no more than 10 days after the polls close, absentee ballots can still be counted, though the board of elections does not recommend cutting it so close. As for the postmarking issue that led to more than 900 ballots being discounted in Summit County last year, Van Allen said state law allows for more options to count as valid time stamps this year.
“A postage label purchased at a USPS customer service window or vending machine includes the date of mailing and counts as a postmark,” Van Allen said. “Ink postmarks and ID tags [bar codes] are sprayed on stamped letters during mail processing. Customers may also request a hand-applied postmark when mailing at a USPS customer service window.”
No circle, no problem
In Summit County, 17 absentee ballot recipients have called the board of elections to complain about nearly invisible circles next to candidates’ names.
“You can see the oval,” Deputy Director Paula Sauter said. “It’s just really light. If you have any type of vision issue, it would be hard to see.”
The issue, Sauter said, is the result of a faulty setting on a printer, which was set up by a private vendor and has been corrected. Ballots with light circles still count, if voters can read them.
In the meantime, Masich has been hand delivering replacement ballots for anyone requesting a more visible version.
No birth date
Don’t worry about putting your birth date on the envelope, as might have been directed before a court said it’s not needed.
The court case decision came down in the middle of the ballot-making process. The board of elections held out “as long as we could” before printing the ballots, Masich said. Along with the accompanying sticker, the front of the envelope should receive a name, identification number and signature — birth dates are no longer necessary.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug .