Apr 28, 2021 3 min read

Nearly all of the requested absentee and mail-in ballots have been sent out to voters in Washington and Greene counties this week ahead of the May 18 primary.

Washington County Election Director Melanie Ostrander had hoped to begin sending out the estimated 10,400 ballots last week to voters who requested them, but the late addition of a statewide referendum question delayed the process until Monday.

The ballot question, which asks whether municipal fire and emergency medical services should be eligible for loans, delayed the state from certifying the final ballot by about a week. It’s one of four referendum questions being posed in the primary, which all voters – including independents – can vote on if they choose to participate.

Still, Ostrander hopes that all ballots will be mailed out by today, giving voters plenty of time to return them by Election Day.

“We should have them all out by the end of the week, if not sooner,” she said.

Voters who asked to be sent mail-in ballots during last year’s primary and general elections were sent a letter in early February asking them whether they wanted to vote by mail again during this election cycle, Ostrander said. The number of ballots requested for the upcoming primary was about 25% of the 43,000 mail-in and absentee votes sent to voters during the presidential election in November.

“It’s really hard to predict turnout for this election because it’s the first (off-year primary) election for these mail-in ballots,” Ostrander said. “Historically, it’s usually below 25% turnout. Could the mail-in ballots cause more people to vote? It’s really hard (to predict).”

The trend was similar in Greene County, where Election Director Judy Snyder said they had sent all 1,639 mail-in and absentee ballots out by Tuesday. That number was about 32% of the more than 5,000 ballots sent out in the county for last year’s presidential election. Snyder was unsure what voter turnout may be like for the primary.

“There are many factors that come into play when it comes to voter turnout,” Snyder said in an email. “I could not say that this is necessarily an indicator.”

Voters have until this Monday to register or change party affiliation, and they have until May 11 to request a mail-in or absentee ballot. Unlike in November’s election, there is no three-day grace period for mail-in or absentee ballots to arrive, meaning they must be returned to the county elections office by 8 p.m. May 18 for them to count.

That will mean a tighter deadline for voters to return their ballots in Fayette County, which is not expected to mail those out until early next week. Fayette County Election Director Larry Blosser blamed the delay on sending the 5,000 ballots due to a last-minute change to the referendum question, along with an unusually large ballot needed to fit all the candidates and questions on one sheet.

“Everything that has transpired with them adding another question, by the time we went in and did the changes, and reproofed it again, that’s why we’re a little bit behind,” Blosser said. “It’s going to be a big ballot. It threw us for a loop because we had to find a different ballot stock … and that ran us into some issues with getting the ballot size.”