With the holidays on the horizon, the November election is likely in most Ohioans’ rearview mirrors by early December, but county boards of elections still have a flurry of work left finalizing everything from now weeks ago.
Canvassing and certifying each election each year on the ballot isn’t the final action item for boards.
The state also mandates audits of its elections. These are essentially smaller-scale recounts, where workers check tabulated results of three races with a percentage of hardcopy paper ballots by one of two prescribed methods. The three races include the one highest on the ticket, one assigned by LaRose and one contested countywide race.
Boards have to hit between 99.5% and 99.8% accuracy or higher, or they have to hold a wider audit. In recent years, most of the audits statewide were above even 99.9% accuracy, said Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican.
One-hundred percent is harder to come by, though. Slight mismatches may arise, LaRose said, from situations like when a person cast their absentee ballot with a glitter pen.
“When it went through the scanner, it read a blank ballot,” LaRose said. “The lasers were reflected by the glitter, and it didn't read any votes, but when they did the hand-count, they were able to see the legal question, which is voter intent, and they could see the voter intent for this candidate, for that candidate, and so then in that case, they knew that should count.”
Six bipartisan teams of four, all Franklin County Board of Elections workers, were hard at work Thursday sifting through stacks of ballots. They started Wednesday and Board Director Antone White said it would take until Friday to finish the audit.
“We want to make sure that Franklin County voters understand what we do, how we do it and the security of our election,” White said
Absent a recount, boards can begin auditing six days after certification and must be done 21 days after. LaRose certified the official 2024 general election results last Monday, according to his office.
