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“On the voting machine, the list of presidential candidates first listed a bunch of unrecognizable names, after that came Jill Stein, then (former President Donald) Trump. I didn’t see Harris/Walz on the screen as an option at all,” she wrote, explaining she finally did find it after figuring out how to scroll down on the screen.
She asks: “Who made the decision of where to list the candidates on the 2024 ballot? Was it Ohio or was it by county?”
This news organization reached out to the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office with the voter’s question. The answer is that the order of candidates on the ballot is determined by state law, and is designed to vary from one precinct and ballot to the next.
The goal is to make sure no candidate gets the coveted top spot — benefitting from voters who just tap on the first name in some races — more than anyone else. This is done for all competitive partisan races.
Here’s how that works: Each board of elections numbers the voting precincts in their county. In the first precinct, the names are all listed in alphabetical order. In the next precinct, the name at the top of each race is moved to the bottom of the list and the other are all moved up. And so on.
“On absentee ballots, the names of all candidates for an office shall be arranged in a group under the title of that office and shall be so alternated that each name shall appear, insofar as may be reasonably possible, substantially an equal number of times at the beginning, at the end, and in each intermediate place,” the law says.
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