Thread by @karenkasler

1.1 million Ohioans have already mailed in absentee ballots or cast them in person – more than 2x the number who'd voted at this point in 2016. And Ohioans will know a lot about those vote totals as soon as the polls close on election night. Here's a thread to explain why (more):

Nearly all absentee ballots will be at Ohio boards of elections by Election Night, but all those postmarked by Nov 2 will be counted up to 10 days after Election Day. So elections officials will have started processing almost all absentee ballots by Election Day. (more)

In 2006, the first year Ohio allowed no-fault absentee voting, the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections expected a lot of voters to try out the new system. So the board wanted to start scanning the ballots before the polls closed on election night. (more)

The Plain Dealer reported in 2006 that Cuyahoga County elections director Michael Vu wanted to start scanning because it could take over 22 hours to scan up to 90,000 absentee ballots he estimated, three times the number of absentee ballots received in the primary in May. (more)

Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who was running for governor in 2006, banned scanning before the polls closed on Election Day. Then-Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason and then-Commissioner Jimmy Dimora asked county judge Dan Gaul to overturn that directive. (more)

A few days before Election Day 2006, Cuyahoga County Judge Dan Gaul overturned Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's ban on early scanning, saying there was a risk that election results would not be reported in a timely manner, as required under state law. (more)

That ruling from Judge Gaul just before Election Day 2006 applied to all 88 counties, saying they could start scanning absentee ballots at 7am the day before Election Day, though the results couldn't be disclosed till after the polls closed. The state didn't appeal. (more)

So Ohio's absentee ballots can be the first results reported. While key states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia have to wait till Election Day to scan their ballots and get results, Ohio will know a lot sooner most of the totals from early ballots here.

And Ohioans will know on Election Night how many outstanding absentee and provisional ballots there are, as Secretary of State @FrankLaRose says for the first time, those outstanding ballot totals will be posted on the main results page. -30- statenews.org/post/larose-wa…