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CLEVELAND, Ohio- Monday, Oct. 5 is the last day to register to vote in Ohio for the upcoming Nov, 3 presidential election, and Oct. 6 is the first day of early voting in the swing state that has President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden neck and neck, former vice president Biden otherwise ahead in national polls and in swing states.
Oct. 31 is the deadline for registered voters to request that a mail-in ballot is mailed out to them for subsequent return.
Registered voters can also pick up a mail-in ballot at the boards of election or request one online at the website of the Ohio secretary of state.
Ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 2 to be counted, though they can also be dropped off at the boards of elections in person until 7:30 pm on Nov, 3, the day of the election.
Unlike the delayed primary election in Ohio this year, which was essentially a main-in primary per bi-partisan legislation by Ohio's general assembly, the polls are open for the November general election, also until 7:30 pm.
Ohio has at least the 37,057 poll workers necessary for the 2020 election, but thousands more are needed, election officials have said, partly due to fears that the coronavirus may keep some who signed up initially at home on election day
The Buckeye State remains in the news, the city of Cleveland in particular, and behind the debate in Cleveland Tuesday night that saw president Trump's family members and others there, excluding former vice president Biden and his camp, disregard. a city ordinance and unambiguous rules by the Commission on Presidential Debates requiring facemasks and other coronavirus precautions.
The President, who announced Friday morning just three days after leaving Cleveland after Tuesday's chaotic debate, remains hospitalized with COVID-19 at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, MD.
First Lady Melania Trump has also contracted the dangerous virus along with other prominent Republicans, many of them in attendance at the White House on Sept 24 as the president announced his Supreme Court pick, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, others infected of whom include Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, top aides, and three GOP senators.
All evidence points to the president and his affiliates as likely carriers who brought the virus to Cleveland for the Sept. 29 debate after a super spreading event regarding his Supreme Court choice just days earlier in the nation's capital, Trump announcing early Friday morning on Twitter that he has the virus, and just three days after Cleveland's horrific debate.
At least 11 positive COVID 19 tests have been traced to Cleveland's debate held last week.
Cleveland Clinic, which co-hosted the debate with Case Western Reserve University on the clinic's main campus, one of three previously scheduled debates leading up to the presidential election, has not publicly commented on why the Trump family and other Republicans attending the invitation only event that aired internationally, including GOP Congressman Jim Jordan, ignored safety protocols.
A representative for the Cleveland Clinic said during an interview prior to the debate that hospital and medical officials, and experts, had advised the Commission on Presidential Debates against a largely public debate in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and had cautioned against relaxed safety protocols.
"Cleveland Clinic is the health advisor to the Commission on Presidential debates," said clinic spokeswoman Angie Kiska. "The pandemic has changed the way presidential debates are handled.
While the Commission on Presidential Debates and Biden and his guests complied with facemasks requirements at the debate, the president's Republican entourage, for the most part, did not, including top aides, and his daughter Yvanka Trump, and her husband Jarred Kushner.
Yvanka Trump, as did several of the other privileged and mainly White invitees there, shrugged off a request by a Cleveland Clinic doctor to put their masks back on.
Few Blacks were invited to Tuesday's debate in Cleveland, a largely Black major American city and a Democratic stronghold, a slap in the face to Black leadership in the city that is led by a diverse 17 -member , all Democratic Cleveland City Council and the city's low key four-term Black mayor, Frank Jackson, who was not in attendance.
Jackson was invited, and a few councilpersons, including east side Ward 6 Councilman Blaine Griffin, who is Black and a possible 2021 mayoral candidate if the mayor, his ally , does not seek a fifth.
A former Community Relations Board director under Jackson, Griffin, and the mayor's former protégé', Griffin said he witnessed the Trump family blatantly refuse to put their masks back on when requested by Cleveland Clinic personnel monitoring Tuesday's debate.
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