COLUMBUS, Ohio — The line of voters at the Franklin County Board of Elections Office at lunchtime on Friday spilled out of the building and stretched down the sidewalk. They were joining the roughly 1.4 million Ohioans who already cast their ballots during early voting, according to the Ohio Secretary of State's Office.
After unfounded claims of election fraud nationally in the 2020 election, 10TV asked several voters if they worry about election integrity and security in Ohio. They all said they are confident their vote is secure.
Bill and Janice Deady, of Reynoldsburg, feel good about the process.
"I'm not the least bit concerned about election security or fraud or anything else," Bill said.
"Otherwise, we wouldn't have come early," Janice added. "If there was a problem, we wouldn't be here today."
Katie Feldstein, of Gahanna, said she was very confident her vote is secure.
Hiedi Bellamy said she had no concerns because she is sure "people are going to do what's right."
Secretary of State Frank LaRose said safeguards are in place from start to finish to maintain voter confidence by keeping the vote secure and accurate. He addressed the conspiracy theory that someone can hack the voting machines.
"Voting machines are never connected to the internet," LaRose said.
He also said every step of the voting process is overseen in a bipartisan way.
"Your county board of elections is run by two Democrats, two Republicans," LaRose said. "Their staff is half Democrats and half Republicans. The building has two locks on every door so you've got Republicans with a Republican key, the Democrats with a Democrat key to even get into the board of elections."
LaRose also said the voting machines are tested for accuracy by Democratic and Republican technical experts.
Cameras also keep eyes on the processing and counting of ballots at elections offices. In Ohio, all ballots are paper ballots whether you fill in an oval or touch a screen and it prints out.
To make sure the final count is accurate, officials do post-election audits.
"We go back and count the paper and compare the electronic results and the paper results side by side, and the two have to reconcile," LaRose said. "There's always a paper ballot. That is the immutable, official copy of your vote, and when we count the paper and compare it to the electronic result, our accuracy rate has been something like 99.9 or 99.98% accurate."