Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted responded Friday to reports of mishandling over 800 absentee ballots.  

It was reported in the Columbus Dispatch that many ballots had been received by the Summit County Board of Elections late and were therefore thrown out. Husted faults the United States Post Office with this issue, stating that the ballots lacked the postmark needed for them to be accurately tallied.

Even though he identified this issue, Husted said he was unable to take any steps to amend the situation due to state law preventing the ballots to be counted without post-marking. 

Husted authorized the use of barcode scanners Friday, which will help prevent an issue similar to this from happening in the future. In his statewide directive, Husted stated that “This policy is consistent with the spirit of the law and common sense dictates that we should use technology to count every ballot we can.”  

Husted reiterated his devotion to making sure that every voter gets their vote counted. However, the risk of absentee ballots not being counted is still a possibility in Ohio.

In the 2014 elections, 20.6 percent of voters in Ohio elected to vote absentee, according to data collected by the Ohio Secretary of State’s office.