With only four days until the midterm election, Ohio election officials are reporting an increase in early in-person voters compared to 2018.
Ohioans have cast almost 50 percent more early, in-person ballots this year than a week before the 2018 election, according to numbers released by the Ohio Secretary of State’s office on Tuesday.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose is encouraging Ohioans to utilize early voting and extended hours prior to Election Day.
“Voters should be focusing right now on utilizing Ohio’s extended evening and weekend early voting options so they can be sure their voice is heard,” LaRose said.
As of Tuesday, 265,062 people across the state have voted early in person. That is 88,016 more than those who had voted early a week before the statewide gubernatorial election in 2018.
In total, voters have cast 817,644 ballots in Ohio so far, an increase of 11 percent from this point in 2018.
Voters in Hamilton County have almost doubled the number of early ballots tallied before the 2018 election.
According to the Ohio Secretary of State’s office. Ohioans have also voted early at a higher rate in Cuyahoga, Franklin, Montgomery, Stark, and Summit counties this year than a week before the 2018 election.
Voters can find a full county-by-county breakdown and comparison on the secretary of state website.
Absentee mail-in ballot requests, however, are down across the state. So far Ohioans have requested 978,433 absentee ballots, a 5.4 percent decrease from 2018.
Another consideration is how much early voting occurs in the final week of the election. By this point in 2018 voters had turned in 736,464 ballots. At the end of early voting more than 1.35 million rolled in. Counties saw their total number of submitted ballots jump in the final stretch by more than 80 percent on average.
The deadline to request an absentee ballot is November 5, three days prior to the election. Mailed absentee ballots need to be postmarked by November 7 and received by a county board of elections by November 18.
Absentee ballots can also be delivered in person to county boards of elections until the polls close at 7:30 p.m. on Election Day.
“While Ohio law allows voters to wait until this Saturday to request an absentee ballot, that just doesn’t give our bipartisan county boards of elections much time for their security check, processing, and delivery of the ballot to the voter’s mailbox before Election Day,” LaRose said.
Early voting at Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections offices ends on Monday, November 7 at 2:00 p.m. Voters can find early voting locations and times at the Ohio secretary of state website.
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Hannah Poling is a lead reporter at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Hannah on Twitter @HannahPoling1. Email tips to [email protected].
