Special Voting Circumstances – Ballot Assistance and Election Day Voting

Special Voting Circumstances

Accessibility provisions and preparing for uncertain circumstances help ensure secure, accurate, and accessible elections for all voters.

Unforeseeable Hospitalization

Requesting an absentee ballot application

If you or your minor child is confined to a hospital after the early voting by mail application deadline, you’ll need to use one of these forms, or make your own application to request an absentee ballot:

Form 11-B: Absentee Ballot Application -- Hospitalization Due to an Accident or Unforeseeable Medical Emergency That Occurred After the Close of Business on the Seventh Day before Election Day and Before 3 p.m. on Election Day (PDF)(opens in a new window)

Returning an absentee ballot

If your hospitalization is within your county, you may receive and return your absentee ballot through a family member or two board of elections employees.

If you hospitalization is out of your county, you may receive and return your absentee ballot through a family member or mail.

If you are a voter with a disability and your hospitalization is outside your county, request your ballot be delivered by a family member, mail, or request a reasonable accommodation to receive your ballot from two election officials from the county board of elections in the county of your hospitalization.

For more information about unforeseeable hospitalization, contact your county board of elections.

Signature Options

Your signature is required on most forms, including voter registration, absentee ballot request, and various other forms.

A wet signature includes:

• Physically signing your name
• Making an “X”
  • Have a person witness you making that mark write his or her name beneath the signature line. 
• Making a legal mark
  • Have a person witness you making that mark write his or her name beneath the signature line. 

Unable to sign?

Option #1: If, by reason of disability, you are unable to physically sign your name, make an “X” or make another legal mark, you may appoint an “attorney-in-fact” who may then sign your name on your behalf at your direction and in your presence. To appoint a person as your attorney-in-fact, you must use Ohio Secretary of State form 10-F Attorney-in-Fact Authorization Executed Before a Notary Public or form 10-G Attorney-in-Fact Authorization with Physician Statement.

Option #2: If, by reason of disability, you are unable to physically sign your name, you may personally affix your signature using a reasonable accommodation, including the use of assistive technology, or an augmentative device such as a signature stamp.

Option #3 (Only for voter registration): If you are unable to make an “X,” you must indicate in some manner to the person assisting you that you want to register to vote. The person registering you must sign the form and attest that you indicated that you want to register to vote.

Confined Voters with a Physical Disability, Illness, or Infirmity

If you are a voter with a disability or you are confined to your home, a nursing home, jail, or workhouse and cannot vote at your polling location on Election Day or in person at your county board of election office due to personal illness, physical disability, infirmity, or confinement you may vote by an absentee ballot.

Request your absentee ballot or any written application containing all the required information plus the nature of the voter’s illness, physical disability, infirmity, or confinement. 

You may submit a request to receive your absentee ballot beginning January 1st of the year or 90 days before the election, whichever is earlier, and ending 12:00 p.m. noon on the Saturday before Election Day. 

You may receive and return your absentee ballot by mail or in person through two board of elections employees.

For more information about disability or confinement contact your county board of elections.

Curbside Voting

You can vote curbside, if you are a voter with a disability and you are physically unable to enter your early voting location or polling location. With curbside voting, two poll workers from opposite major political parties bring out a ballot, and you have the option to sit in your vehicle to vote or vote at the door of the early voting location or polling location.

If early voting, arrangements must be made to vote curbside at the early voting location prior to arrival.

If voting on election day, you may send another person into the polling location to inform poll workers of your desire to vote curbside.

To get more information about curbside voting at your early voting or polling location, contact your county board of elections.

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