Where is my Residence for Voting Purposes?
On Election Day, you must cast your ballot in your precinct at your designated polling place between the hours of 6:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. If you do not know where your designated precinct or polling place is located, please contact your county board of elections.
Your residence is important because it determines the contests for which you are eligible to vote (e.g., the proper congressional district, school district, etc.). Your voting residence is determined by the county board of elections using guidelines established by Ohio law (R.C. 3503.02). Your voting residence is the place in which your habitation is fixed and to which, whenever you are absent, you intend to return. Also, your voting residence is a location you consider to be a permanent, not a temporary, residence. You will not lose your voting residency in Ohio if you leave temporarily and intend to return to Ohio, unless you are absent from the state for four consecutive years. You may contact your local board of elections if you have any questions regarding your specific situation.
(Exception: You will not lose your residency after four years if your absence from Ohio is due to your employment with Ohio or the U.S. government, including military service, unless you vote in, or permanently move to, another state or country.)
If you do not have a fixed place of habitation, but you are a consistent or regular inhabitant of a shelter or other location to which you intend to return, you may use that shelter or other location as your residence for purposes of registering to vote.
For information on voting rights of U.S. citizens living outside the U.S., please click here, Uniformed and Overseas Citizens. May a college student register and vote from his or her school address in Ohio?
It depends. A college student may vote using his or her Ohio school residence address if the student does not intend to return to a different permanent address. When a college student registers to vote from his or her school address, the school residence is considered to be the place to which the student's habitation is fixed and to which, whenever the student is absent, the student intends to return, and is considered by the student to be his or her permanent residence at the time of voting. Any other previous residence for voting purposes is no longer valid. It is illegal for a person to register and vote from two different addresses.