§ 3509.05Voting and return procedure

(A) When an elector receives an absent voter's ballot pursuant to the elector's application or
request, the elector shall, before placing any marks on the ballot, note whether there are any
voting marks on it. If there are any voting marks, the ballot shall be returned immediately to
the board of elections; otherwise, the elector shall cause the ballot to be marked, folded in a
manner that the stub on it and the indorsements and facsimile signatures of the members of
the board of elections on the back of it are visible, and placed and sealed within the
identification envelope received from the board of elections for that purpose. Then, the elector
shall cause the statement of voter on the outside of the identification envelope to be
completed and signed, under penalty of election falsification.
(B) The elector shall provide one of the following:
 (1) The elector's Ohio driver's license or state identification card number on the statement of
voter on the identification envelope;
 (2) The last four digits of the elector's social security number on the statement of voter on the
identification envelope;
(3) A copy of the elector's photo identification in the return envelope with the identification
envelope.
 (C)(1) The elector shall mail the identification envelope to the office of the board of elections
in the return envelope, postage prepaid, or the elector may personally deliver it to the office of
the board, or the spouse of the elector, the father, mother, father-in-law, mother-in-law,
grandfather, grandmother, brother, or sister of the whole or half blood, or the son, daughter,
adopting parent, adopted child, stepparent, stepchild, uncle, aunt, nephew, or niece of the
elector may deliver it to the office of the board. The return envelope shall be returned by no
other person, in no other manner, and to no other location, except as otherwise provided in
section 3509.08 of the Revised Code.
 (2) If the board maintains multiple offices in the county, as permitted under division (C) of
section 3501.10 of the Revised Code, the board may designate any of its offices for the return
of absent voter's ballots under this section, provided that the board shall designate only one
office to which absent voter's ballots shall be returned under this section.



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(3)(a) The board of elections may place not more than one secure receptacle outside the
office of the board, on the property on which the office of the board is located, for the purpose
of receiving absent voter's ballots under this section.
 (b) A secure receptacle shall be open to receive ballots only during the period beginning on
the first day after the close of voter registration before the election and ending at seven-thirty
p.m. on the day of the election. The receptacle shall be open to receive ballots at all times
during that period.
 (c) A secure receptacle shall be monitored by recorded video surveillance at all times. The
video recordings are a public record. The board shall do one of the following:
 (i) Make the video recordings available for inspection upon request in accordance with
section 149.43 of the Revised Code.
 (ii) Make each day's video recording available to the public on the internet for streaming or
download without charge within seventy-two hours after the recording ends and make the
video recordings available to the public upon request in accordance with section 149.43 of the
Revised Code.
 (d) Only a bipartisan team of election officials may open a secure receptacle or handle its
contents. A bipartisan team of election officials shall collect the contents of each secure
receptacle and deliver them to the board for processing at least once each day and at seven-
thirty p.m. on the day of the election. If, at seven-thirty p.m. on the day of the election, there
are persons waiting in line to deposit absent voter's ballots in a receptacle, those persons
shall be permitted to deposit the ballots.
 (4)(a) During the period beginning on the forty-fifth day before election day and ending on the
day after election day, on each day the office of the board of elections is open for business,
the board shall report to the secretary of state all of the following information concerning the
previous business day:
 (i) The number of return envelopes purporting to contain absent voter's ballots or uniformed
services or overseas absent voter's ballots the board received by personal delivery, other than
to a receptacle described in division (C)(3) of this section;
 (ii) If the board has placed a secure receptacle outside the office of the board under division
(C)(3) of this section, the number of return envelopes purporting to contain absent voter's
ballots or uniformed services or overseas absent voter's ballots the board received in the
receptacle.




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 (b) As soon as practicable after receiving a report under division (C)(4)(a) of this section, the
secretary of state shall make the information in the report available to the public on the
secretary of state's official web site.
 (D) Except as otherwise provided in section 3511.11 of the Revised Code, all envelopes
containing marked absent voter's ballots shall be delivered to the office of the board not later
than the close of the polls on the day of an election. Absent voter's ballots delivered to the
office of the board later than the times specified shall not be counted, but shall be kept by the
board in the sealed identification envelopes in which they are delivered, until the time
provided by section 3505.31 of the Revised Code for the destruction of all other ballots used
at the election for which ballots were provided, at which time they shall be destroyed.




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