Frank LaRose, Ohio's Top Elections Official, GOP official, Warns That a Single Law is Going to Delay Election Results in other Midwest Swing States

<p>Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, said that in his state mail-in ballots will be among the first ballots counted on the night of the election. This is because Ohio law allows election clerks to process mail-in ballots as they arrive in the weeks and days before the election, so they’re ready to be counted and tabulated the moment polls close.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>“We can start processing those right away, meaning cut the envelope, open, verify the information on it, put it through the scanner, but not hit tabulate. That can't happen until 7:30 on election night,” LaRose said. But LaRose noted that other Rust Belt swing states don’t have laws on the books that allow mail-in ballots to be processed in advance. “Now our friends up the road in Michigan, they can't start processing ballots until Election Day,” he said.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>It’s not just Michigan, however. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/gop-intransigence-in-michigan-could-lead-to-a-chaotic-presidential-election-090037868.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">also can’t process the ballots in advance</a>, meaning a delay in results is all but certain in these crucial battleground states.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Although he decisively lost the popular vote in 2016, President Trump’s narrow victories in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were enough for him to win in the Electoral College. In Michigan, for example, Trump won by roughly 10,000 votes, or about 0.2 percent of all votes cast.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>“If you think about a big county like Wayne County – where Detroit is – I mean, they're going to have pallets and pallets of ballots waiting to get processed, that they really can't touch until election day. And that's unfortunate,” LaRose said. He added that it “could be days” before all mail ballots are counted.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Election experts have warned for months of <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/trumps-attacks-on-mailin-voting-could-lead-to-nightmare-scenario-electio