The Ohio Revised Code, ORC 3503.02(A), defines a residence for the purposes of voter registration as the place “in which the person’s habitation is fixed and to which, whenever the person is absent, the person has the intention of returning.” The EOM, Chapter 4, page 77, directs that “a person cannot list a post office box or a commercial mail store as their residence for voting purposes.” It further directs county boards of election to regularly review the eligibility of any elector whose voter registration address is an address of a rented postal box and to program their voter registration systems to flag the use of these types of addresses, although this is contrary to the plain reading of the ORC.
The Secretary of State’s office was made aware of voters registered at The UPS Store in March 2022. Since then, a more extensive list of The UPS Store locations was compiled revealing additional registrants at these addresses. 62 of the voters that were reported to the SoS remain in the voter registration database as of 6/11/22.
The statewide voter file downloaded on 6/11/22 was screened against a list of The UPS Store addresses obtained from UPS.com. 294 persons were identified as registered at The UPS Store addresses. 203 of these persons are registered at locations in strip malls or stand-alone, single-story, commercial buildings. The remaining 91 possibly live in apartments above a The UPS Store location; however, because the street address matches further investigation is required to verify whether those are legitimate registrations. 146 of these individuals voted in the November 2020 Presidential election, 22 voted in the November 2021 general election, and 29 voted in the May 2022 primary election. The table below summarizes The UPS Store registrations and voters by county. Click here to see all voters registered at the UPS Store.
County | Number of The UPS Store Registrants | Number of Nov 2020 Voters | Number of Nov 2021 Voters | Number of May 2022 Voters |
Allen | 5 | 2 | 1 | |
Ashland | 9 | 5 | 1 | 2 |
Butler | 40 | 12 | 1 | 2 |
Clermont | 2 | 1 | ||
Coshocton | 3 | |||
Cuyahoga | 19 | 14 | 4 | 4 |
Delaware | 2 | |||
Fairfield | 1 | 1 | ||
Franklin | 7 | 5 | ||
Geauga | 3 | 2 | ||
Greene | 18 | 9 | 2 | 2 |
Hamilton | 16 | 7 | 1 | |
Hancock | 2 | |||
Jefferson | 6 | 2 | ||
Lake | 20 | 7 | 2 | |
Lorain | 2 | 2 | ||
Lucas | 1 | |||
Mahoning | 9 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
Medina | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 |
Miami | 2 | |||
Montgomery | 14 | 5 | 1 | |
Portage | 1 | 1 | ||
Richland | 2 | 2 | 1 | |
Sandusky | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Shelby | 2 | 1 | ||
Stark | 5 | 2 | ||
Summit | 87 | 55 | 8 | 11 |
Tuscarawas | 3 | |||
Warren | 1 | |||
Washington | 2 | 1 | ||
Grand Total | 294 | 146 | 22 | 29 |