(The Center Square) – More Republicans than Democrats have voted in Ohio as the state passed 1 million votes cast in early voting less than two weeks before the Nov. 5 election.
Through Wednesday afternoon, 1.14 million votes have been cast by Ohioans either through early in-person voting or absentee mail ballots returned. There are still nearly 600,000 requested absentee mail ballots outstanding.
“Ohioans know that it’s both easy to vote and hard to cheat here. As a result, they are taking advantage of early and absentee voting in historic numbers!” Secretary of State Frank LaRose said on social media.
The total votes cast doubled from the start of early voting Oct. 8 to Wednesday.
Nearly 6 million people in Ohio voted in the 2020 general election, up more than 300,000 from 2016. According to the Ohio Legislative Services Commission, nearly 2.2 million voted in Ohio by absentee in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and another 1.3 million voted early in-person.
The commission said the votes cast by mail and early were 59% of the total votes cast due to the pandemic. The average of absentee or early in-person votes cast in the previous four elections was 31%.
So far in 2024, Republicans have cast 37,000 early votes, while Democrats have cast 25,000. Independents have cast 510,000. Also, the bulk of the votes – 660,000 – have come from people 65 years old and older.
The figures come from a new dashboard created by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose. The dashboard, populated by each county board of elections, allows anyone to see return rates by county, early voter numbers, voter demographics and party affiliation.
As previously reported by The Center Square, LaRose called the dashboard a way for the state to retain and report election data.
