Absentee voters in Ohio are required to seal their ballots in an identification envelope. On the outside of the envelope, they must provide a signature, a driver's license number or the last 4 digits of their social security number, and other information. Some voters don't follow these instructions, and their votes aren't counted. The Toledo Blade covered this problem a few months ago, explaining how 921 ballots were disqualified. Look below the fold for a possible remedy.
Yesterday, thanks to the links at the United States Election Project's early voting summary, I decided to look at the early returns from Cuyahoga County. In those returns, voters whose ballots were not sealed in the ID envelope, and therefore won't be counted, are marked in red: "BALLOT NOT IN ID ENVELOPE." By my count, of the 42330 Democrats who have returned ballots, 1379 have been rejected for this reason. Of the 10115 Republicans, 268 have been rejected.
I then wondered if the county auditor or the state of Ohio are required to notify voters whose ballots weren't sealed in the envelope. Ohio revised code 3509 doesn't appear to require that voters be notified (unlike in Washington state, where I live). However, it appears from section 3509.09 that people who attempted to vote absentee can also cast a provisional ballot at their polling place.
There's a great opportunity here to make sure people's votes are counted. Are the Obama Campaign and the Ohio Democratic Party on top of this issue?