PoliticsOhio is reporting the results from its presidential and congressional primaries on Tuesday, April 28.- The state held its primaries almost entirely by mail over the course of a month due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
- Ohio will begin reporting results at 7:30 PM Eastern Time.
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Ohio will begin reporting results from its all-mail presidential and congressional primary elections at 7:30 PM Eastern Time.
The stakes:
Bernie Sanders officially dropped out of the presidential primary on April 8, making former VP
In the Democratic presidential primary, Ohio allocates 136 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention, with 89 allocated between the state's 16 congressional districts and 47 allocated based on the statewide results.
Here's where Biden and Sanders currently stand in the delegate race, according to Decision Desk HQ and the University of Virginia Center for
In addition to the presidential primary, Ohio is holding primary elections for both parties in all 16 of its House of Representatives districts, including a highly-watched progressive primary challenge to Rep. Joyce Beatty in the state's safely-Democratic third district in Columbus.
Ohio was originally set to hold an in-person election on March 17, along with Arizona, Illinois, and Florida.
But as confirmed cases of the virus in the state sharply increased, Gov. Mike DeWine made a last-minute effort to delay the election until June. But after being blocked by a judge, he and health commissioner Dr. Amy Acton declared a public health emergency to shut down polling places the day before the election.
The Ohio legislature then moved to extend mail-in voting for the primaries through April 28 as well as offering very limited options in-person options on Tuesday for voters with disabilities who need additional assistance.
Notably, the legislature did not authorize the Secretary of State's office to mail every voter an absentee ballot, or even an absentee request form. Instead, the office sent postcards to every voter outlining the procedures by which they can vote.
Voters who cast absentee ballots must either mail in their ballot postmarked by April 27, drop it off at a secure drop box outside an election office by 7:30 P.M. on Tuesday.
"In a matter of weeks, we've done something that's taken other states years to do – transform our state into one capable of voting entirely by mail," Secretary of State Frank LaRose said in a Monday release.
The circumstances surrounding the election have led to considerably low voter turnout. According to April 27 figures released by LaRose's office, 1.97 million, or just 26%, of Ohio's 7.7 million registered voters requested ballots, with a little over 1.45 million voters returning their ballots by Monday.
Election officials also reported delays in getting absentee ballots out to voters due to backlogs in the US Postal Service's operations.
While Biden is virtually assured to win the state's presidential primary, election officials will still accept ballots received through May 8 as long as they are postmarked by April 27, meaning some closer races may not be decided until then.
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