When the polls are open
Polls are open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on March 17, 2020.
Where to find the issues and candidates
Voters can find lists of all candidates and issues on the home page of the Wood County Board of Elections’ website.
Absentee ballots and early voting
Voters can submit absentee ballots and vote early for the upcoming election now (starting 29 days before the election). Early voting began on Feb. 19 and will continue until one day before the election. Voters can find a full 2020 election calendar on the Wood County Board of Elections website, along with an absentee ballot application.
Ballots should be sent to the Wood County Board of Elections at 1 Courthouse Square, Bowling Green, Ohio 43402.
BGSU will be on spring break during the primary election; therefore, many students will have to vote early to participate in the election.
Polling locations
According to the Wood County Board of Elections Master Precinct List, a total of 19 of Wood County’s 95 precincts are in Bowling Green. These Bowling Green precincts have six polling locations. On-campus BGSU students have one polling location in the student union, and the city of Bowling Green contains five polling locations.
Based on information from the Bowling Green City Precinct Map, some BGSU students in apartments throughout the city can find their polling locations on the list below if they registered to vote and updated their address before Feb. 18.
Trinity United Methodist Church
200 N. Summit St.
Bowling Green, Ohio 43402
-
Columbia Courts
-
Heinzsite Apartments
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church
315 S. College Drive
Bowling Green, OH 43402
-
Falcons Pointe Apartments
-
The Edge Apartments
-
Shamrock Village
-
Stadium-View Apartments
-
Ivywood Apartments
-
Amherst Village Apartments
-
University Village Apartments
-
Bowling Green Village Apartments
-
Winthrop Terrace South Apartments
-
Varsity Square Apartments
-
Copper Beech Townhomes
Wood County District Public Library
251 N. Main St.
Bowling Green, Ohio 43402
Church of the Nazarene
1855 Gorrill Road
Bowling Green, Ohio 43402
Junior Fair Building, Wood County Fairgrounds
13800 W. Poe Road
Bowling Green, Ohio 43402
-
Residents in Center Township and Plain Township
A voter can look up their polling location on voterlookup.ohiosos.gov if they are already registered to vote.
Updated Addresses
Students who do not have an updated address won’t be able to vote in the upcoming election because the deadline to update addresses was Feb. 18.
To change their address for future elections, voters can go to ohiosos.gov and click on the “CHANGE MY ADDRESS” tab.
What to bring
According to the Ohio Secretary of State’s website, voters must bring proof of identification and announce their full name and proof of current address upon arriving at their polling locations.
Alyssa Tomins, BGSU Votes ambassador, wrote in an email that on-campus students who are registered to vote with their on-campus address need a Voter Identification Letter available in their MyBGSU student center.
To access the letter, students should click on “Student Center” in their MyBGSU, click on “Profile,” then click on “Voter ID Letter.”
”Then show the letter to the poll workers,” Tomins wrote. “Students can access the letter on their cell phone, or they can print it off.”
Off-campus students need to show some form of ID that has their registered address on it. In other words, students must show an ID with their address in Wood County.
“For most students this won’t be their driver’s license because that lists their home address, not necessarily their current registration address,” Tomins wrote. But other acceptable forms of ID for off-campus students include “a utility bill, a bank statement, a military ID, a paystub, or any official government issued ID/document that includes their registration address.”
A voter can find a full list of acceptable forms of identification here.
Provisional ballots
According to the Ohio Secretary of State’s website, if a voter doesn’t have any of the correct forms of identification, they can vote by providing the last four digits of their Social Security number to cast a provisional ballot. Once the number has been reviewed by the board of elections, the vote will be counted.
If the voter doesn’t have any forms of identification on election day — including their Social Security number — they can still vote. However, the voter will have to return to the Wood County Board of Elections no later than seven days after election day with the appropriate identification.
How long does it take to vote?
According to the Wood County Board of Elections website, voting only takes a few minutes in most cases. Primary elections are typically less busy than general elections in November.
Polls are busiest from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.; 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.; and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
