MOUNT VERNON – There are more places for Knox County residents to vote early. That's because of an influx of early voters in the 2020 presidential election, Knox County Board of Elections Director Kim Horn told the Commissioners during a meeting on Oct. 13.
Horn said the use of a third voting station instead of the usual two will help with the rise in early voting. One of those stations is for provisional ballots.
“There’s been probably 1,600 early voters so far this year,” Horn told the Mount Vernon News. “This time during the 2016 election, I’d say we had about 1,400 early voters so we have already surpassed that."
With new security measures in place, this 2020 election is being taken very seriously.
“There were new measures put in place in 2019 that require a two-party swipe to get into the IT room to ensure everything was done fairly,” Horn said.
“The state requires now that each IT person has to declare their political party,” Jason Booth, Knox County administrator said. “They have to dual swipe to get into the IT room. So, if there’s a republican, there has to be a democrat to go into the IT room with them.”
These measures were put into place to ensure there would be no tampering with anything during the voting process.
The early voting period in Ohio runs from Oct. 6 until Nov. 2.
You will need to show identification to vote in Ohio. Acceptable forms include an unexpired Ohio driver's license or state ID card, a military ID, or a photo ID issued by the U.S. government or the State of Ohio that shows your name and current address and that has an expiration date that has not passed.
Other acceptable IDs include a current (within the last 12 months) utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck or other government document (other than a notice of voter registration mailed by a board of elections) that shows your name and current address.
Voters without ID may provide either an Ohio driver's license or state identification number (which begins with two letters followed by six numbers) or the last four digits of your Social Security number to cast a provisional ballot. Once the information is reviewed and verified by the board of elections, the ballot will be counted.
