Ohioans will face an earlier deadline to return their mail ballots in future elections, under a fast-tracked law change Republican lawmakers approved on Wednesday under pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration.
Senate Bill 293 requires absentee ballots to arrive at county elections offices by Election Day in order to count. Ohio law for years has allowed straggling mail ballots up to four days after the election – as long as they have a pre-Election Day postmark.
The extra time was meant to protect voters against delays in the mail.
House Republicans approved the bill on Wednesday over Democratic objections. The Senate signed off on the House’s changes to the bill Wednesday night.
The bill now heads to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk for his signature. DeWine, a Republican, hasn’t commented on the bill. After signing a previous set of new voting restrictions in 2022, DeWine discouraged the Republican-controlled legislature from passing laws that impose new restrictions on voting.
Trump administration threatens lawsuit over law
SB293 rocketed through the legislature after its Republican sponsors, Sens. Theresa Gavarone and Andrew Brenner, introduced it on Oct. 14.
The U.S. Justice Department sent letters to state officials, including Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Attorney General Dave Yost, threatening to sue if Ohio didn’t change the law.
“The United States implores Ohio to take immediate action (legislative or otherwise) to comply with federal law and avoid costly litigation in federal court,” reads the letter from Harmeet Dillon, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
The Senate initially approved the bill on Nov. 5. The House approved it earlier Wednesday after holding a single hearing the day before, in which lawmakers added several changes.
Republicans said swift action was needed to prepare Ohio in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a similar Mississippi law. The high court agreed to take up the case earlier this month, and could rule on the underlying lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee before June. Ohio’s primary election will be held in May.
Ohio Republicans also said reducing post-Election Day ballots would help avoid voter confusion and increase public confidence in election results. They also said it will put Ohio more in line with the rest of the country – Ohio is one of 16 states that accept ballots that arrive after Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Democrats meanwhile have said the bill would disenfranchise voters over mail delays, and criticized the bill as rushed.
The bill has also faced criticism from groups that support more expansive voter laws. The House’s late changes to the bill include enhancing the state’s process of screening voter rolls for non-U.S. citizens and checking voter rolls against other state records.
Groups including the Ohio League of Women Voters said these checks could screen out eligible voters over clerical errors.
Thousands of Ohio ballots arrive after Election Day each election
Ohio has counted post-Election Day mail ballots since the mid-2000s, when officials first broadly expanded early voting. It has since become common for thousands of mail ballots to arrive late and still be counted.
For instance, 9,523 out of the 1 million mail-in ballots counted for the November 2024 presidential election arrived post-Election Day, according to state election data.
These straggling ballots can decide close races. While Ohio has no recent high-profile examples, a well-known case is the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost.
Trump since has said repeatedly that the 2020 election was marred by widespread fraud, a claim that’s been rejected as false or unsupported by numerous courts and some top officials within the president’s 2020 campaign and government.