Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican responsible for overseeing elections in Ohio, often says that in this state “it’s easy to vote and hard to cheat.”

Yet Republicans continue to follow President Donald Trump’s lead by restricting voting despite the minuscule instances of fraud in Ohio.

The latest law, approved Nov. 19 by the General Assembly and signed Dec. 19 by Gov. Mike DeWine, requires all mail-in ballots to arrive at county boards of elections no later than the same day as the election.

Before that, voters had to have their ballots postmarked by the day before the election and have them arrive no later than four days after the election to be counted.

That grace period was reduced in 2023 from seven days.

The idea behind the grace period is because the postal system can be notoriously slow with delivery — my grandchildren in Strongsville and Cuyahoga Falls are still waiting for cards we mailed in late October. The additional time provides some hope that ballots would arrive at boards of elections in time to be counted.

This new law is primarily Republican legislators trying to appease and cater to Trump, who hates mail-in ballots almost as much as the Burgermeister Meisterburger hates toys.

Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, said, “Hundreds of thousands of Ohioans across the political spectrum rely on voting by mail. This new law is going to be especially hard on seniors, Ohioans with disabilities, rural Ohioans and students. Voters should not be punished because of slow mail delivery days.”

Before this law, Ohio was among only 16 states in the nation that accepted ballots that arrived after Election Day. A very small percentage of voters will be impacted.

In the 2024 general election, 9,637 ballots out of 1,078,103 mail-in votes came in during the four days after Election Day. That is 0.9%.

In the 2025 general election, 7,274 ballots out of 169,941 that were mailed arrived in that four-day period after Election Day. That’s 4.3% of the vote.

But those late-arriving absentee ballots likely played a role in the outcome of a number of local elections.

A civil service charter amendment in Sebring was winning by one vote before absentee ballots were counted. It ended up losing by one vote. In Trumbull County, a Farmington fire levy was ahead by one vote on Election Day. It ended up losing in a tie after a provisional ballot was counted. Tax issues require a majority vote to be approved.

Statewide, 72 elections were decided by 20 votes or fewer, according to LaRose’s office. There were 32 contests within one vote, including 10 ties.

LaRose said, “These close races show that only one engaged citizen can make all the difference in an election.” A number of those voters submitted late-arriving absentee ballots.

LaRose said post-election audits done by boards of elections in the state’s 88 counties showed a 99.9% accuracy rate.

“We don’t just ask Ohioans to trust the process — we trust but verify,” LaRose said. “Confidence in our elections comes from transparency and accountability, and Ohio’s bipartisan election officials continue to prove why our state sets the national gold standard.”

Despite that “national gold standard,” LaRose said, “tight races underscore why election integrity matters, and it reinforces the need for a zero-tolerance approach to unlawful voting. A single illegitimate vote has the potential to undermine the outcome of an election for an entire community, whether it’s a school levy or a seat in Congress.”

DeWine, a Republican, said Dec. 19, “I believe that this four-day grace period is reasonable, and I think for many reasons it makes a lot of sense. Therefore, I normally would veto a repeal of this four-day grace period. And frankly, that’s what I wish I could do. However, there have been challenges to similar laws in other states. In fact, the 5th Circuit (Court of Appeals) has ruled that Mississippi’s law, which also provides for a grace period as does Ohio law, violates a federal law that sets the date of election for all federal elections. That case, from the 5th Circuit, has now been accepted by the United States Supreme Court. The case has not yet been argued, and frankly, we should not expect an opinion from the Supreme Court until likely late June.”

If the Supreme Court upholds the federal appeals court decision and Ohio still has the four-day grace period, DeWine said, “the election situation in Ohio would be chaotic. This is because we would have one set of rules for state candidates, one set of rules for federal candidates, pursuant to that Supreme Court case. Two sets of rules, or even two separate ballots — one for federal races and one for state contests. This certainly would confuse voters.”

To eliminate that potential confusion, DeWine said he “reluctantly” signed the bill into law.

Ohio has seen plenty of confusion with elections over the past few years, including an August 2023 special election right after the state Legislature passed a bill severely restricting such elections and an August 2022 special election for state legislative seats because a new map for those districts was ruled unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court.