ASHLAND — Ashland County voters get their last chance to vote early in person on Sunday, Nov. 1, as the county board of elections in Ashland opens from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. for the final session of early voting ahead of the Tuesday, Nov. 3 general election, according to the Ashland County Board of Elections.
The board’s office is at 110 Cottage St., Suite 106, in Ashland, and early voting ends at 5 p.m. Sunday, the board’s published schedule says. After that, the only way to cast a ballot is in person at assigned polling places on Election Day, when polls across Ohio are open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
The top local contest on the Ashland County ballot is a county commissioner race between Democrat Sandy Bally and Republican Brandon Carpenter for the seat held by Denny Bittle, according to The Daily Record’s Ashland County election guide. Carpenter defeated Bittle for the Republican nomination in the May primary, The Daily Record reported.
Voters will also decide two county levy questions, according to The Daily Record’s guide: a five-year renewal of up to two mills for the county children services agency and senior citizens services and facilities, and a three-year renewal of 2.1 mills plus a one-mill increase — a rate not exceeding 3.1 mills — for the Dale-Roy programs run by the Ashland County Board of Developmental Disabilities.
School and local issues fill out precinct ballots around the county. They include a continuing 9.9-mill renewal for current expenses in the Ashland City School District, a Northwestern Local fixed-sum levy renewal estimated at an average of 1.8 mills, a Loudonville-Perrysville school income tax and bond proposal, a Clear Creek Fire District additional four-mill levy, and fire district, library, cemetery and road levy renewals in several townships and villages, according to The Daily Record’s guide.
Every Ashland County voter will also see statewide Issue 3, the proposed constitutional amendment to require photo identification to vote, along with Ohio’s eight statewide races and the U.S. Senate contest, according to The Daily Record’s guide.
One deadline now matters more than any other for voters holding a mail ballot: under Ohio law, absentee ballots must be received by the board of elections by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day to be counted — there is no longer a post-Election Day grace period for most ballots. Voters can return a completed ballot in person to the board office or its drop box, or vote in person on Tuesday.