Voting rights and protection advocates report Ohio's midterm elections have been largely smooth so far, aside from some jammed scanners and calibration issues.
Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, said this year stands apart from prior elections in terms of volunteer turnout.
"We have 1,100 election protection volunteers who have been trained," she said. "Now some of those are poll monitors, some of them are peacekeepers, some are legal monitors, but the team is out today in 33 different counties."
Poll monitors are trained to be a friendly face for voters that can help ensure they are at the correct polling location and have the right identification.
Many polling locations in Cuyahoga County, Franklin County and Mahoning County were shifted this year, according to Steve David, director of All Voting is Local Ohio.
Poll monitors watching for provisional ballots, DOJ presence
David said poll monitors will also be watching for those with provisional ballots, to ensure their votes count in the case that they are at the wrong polling location or face identification challenges.
"You do have a four-day cure period where you can go to your board of elections to make sure that that ballot gets counted," he said. "So folks who had to vote provisional today because of not having adequate ID on them, we encourage them to go back to their board by Saturday and make sure that that ballot gets secured so it can be counted."
Ohio passed several changes to its voter ID laws in June. During this past primary, David said 760 voters had their provisional ballots thrown out.
This year, some of Ohio's polling locations in Medina, Franklin and Cuyahoga counties also saw the presence of federal election observers from the Department of Justice.
Maria Bruno, executive director of Ohioans Against Extremism, said so far the organization's legal monitors have not reported any instances of intimidation.
"We continue to monitor that presence," she said. "We, of course, have our legal monitors out roaming the field for the rest of Election Day and our many, many poll monitors. But so far, so good."
Bruno said those federal observers are not expected to be a part of any board of elections tally or certification process.
Voter hotline hears some local voting issues
Ohio's voter protection hotline has seen some localized issues, primarily with the calibration of touch screen machines.
"We've had reports of voters when they would touch that screen, that it would not highlight the one that they had intended, or seem to like switch from one to the other while they were going through," David said.
In those cases, he said most voters noticed the issue and were able to make changes to their votes. The board of election in each case was also contacted to double-check machines.
Some voters may also encounter jammed tabulators while casting their vote. David said jams are fairly common, and there is a process in place to handle them.
"If there is an issue with the tabulator, poll workers are able to put ballots in a secure, locked bag if the tabulator is not working," he said.
Those ballots are then transported by a bipartisan group of poll workers to the board of elections to be counted at the end of the day.
Voters can reach Ohio's voter protection hotline at 866-687-8683 to ask questions or report any challenges while voting.
