Editorials: Making validly cast absentee ballots count in Ohio | Cleveland Plain Dealer

A recent directive to Ohio’s county boards of elections by Secretary of State Jon Husted, Ohio’s chief election officer, should reduce the possibility that mailed-in absentee ballots might not get counted because of confusion or questions over postmarks. During the 2015 general election, an unusually large number of absentee ballots were not counted in Summit County and other counties because they lacked a postmark. Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections must count absentee ballots returned by mail for up to ten days after Election Day. But such ballots must have been postmarked no later than the day before Election Day. Trouble is, the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t necessarily postmark envelopes much larger than a No. 10, or “letter size,” envelope. And some elections boards use bigger courtesy-reply envelopes. Meanwhile, it’s been unclear whether barcodes the post office adds during mail-sorting or Postage Validated Imprint (PVI) postage — imprinted, label-like postage, sold at post office counters and kiosks — are postmarks. PVI postage and barcodes include dates (although a scanner is needed to read barcodes).
So Husted issued a directive on Jan. 29 that requires elections boards, beginning with November’s election, to include on absentee-ballot courtesy-reply envelopes a Postal Service “election mail” logo and a barcode containing a board’s mailing address.
Husted also recommended that boards using envelopes bigger than letter size reconsider that practice. And he said PVI postage and barcodes the post office adds are acceptable postmarks. (Postage-meter postage or so-called PC Postage — which the postage service defines as “USPS-approved third-party vendor software that mailers can use to pay for and print their postage using a computer, printer, and Internet connection” — is not acceptable proof of postmark, however.)
Full Article: Making validly cast absentee ballots count in Ohio: editorial | cleveland.com.