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Elections workers are asking state lawmakers to delay the May 3 primary

voters casting their ballots on election day
Dan Konik
/
Statehouse News Bureau

Secretary of State Frank LaRose has asked local boards to add Ohio House and Senate candidates to the May 3 primary ballot, though the maps of their districts that were approved last week haven’t been okayed by the Ohio Supreme Court. But the Ohio Association of Elections Officials has sent a letter to state lawmakers, asking them to delay the primary.

The association’s Aaron Ockerman says since legislative districts haven’t been firmed up yet, many counties in Ohio no longer have the ability to run a successful May 3 election.

“It’s gone from possible to impossible, where it’s gone from advisable to try to move forward to crunch deadline and try to make this work for May 3 to inadvisable and it’s mostly because we still lack all of the information we need to try to complete a successful primary on May 3,” Ockerman says.

Ockerman says he's not telling lawmakers what to do but he wants them to know elections boards are in uncharted territory. March 18 is the federal deadline to send ballots to overseas and military voters. And even if the maps are ok’d this week, he says there isn’t a lot of time to get ballots printed and do all of the things that need to be done to make the deadlines.

Read the letter from the Ohio Association of Election Officials to leaders of the Ohio Legislature here.


Copyright 2022 The Statehouse News Bureau. To see more, visit The Statehouse News Bureau.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.