Early voting reaching record numbers in Butler County

Early voting in Butler County has reached a record pace, with election officials saying 1,000 voters a day stream into their Princeton Road offices.

If this pace is maintained, or increases as anticipated by county elections Deputy Director Jocelyn Bucaro, more than 60,000 early votes could be cast between in-office and vote-by-mail ballots. That would be a near-20 percent increase over 2012 and a 27.5 percent increase over 2008.

“The numbers are up significantly,” she said, “and the pace of in-person early voting is really high. It’s higher than we expected.”

MORE: What’s on your ballot? Check out our Voters Guide

Nationwide, more than 4 million voters have already cast a ballot in this Nov. 8 election featuring presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, both of whom have have strong support among their respective bases but high unfavorable ratings. In Ohio, more than 344,000 people had cast a ballot as of Monday, two weeks before the election. Also as of Monday, Butler County reported more than 37,200 early votes cast and Warren County reported nearly 16,300 early votes cast.

High early voting turnout isn’t just happening in Butler County, said Miami University Regionals political science professor John Forren. It’s up across the country. Early voting historically bodes well for Democrats, but with the Ohio Secretary of State mailing out absentee vote-by-mail applications to all registered Ohio voters he said it’s hard to say which candidate that will impact most.

But in the end with high early voting and potentially a high voter turnout, Forren said, "Democracy is the winner in all this." Projections estimate Ohio voter turnout could be 65 percent on Nov. 8. Turnout was 70.53 percent in 2012 and 69.97 percent in 2008.

“If elections are supposed to be the voice of the people, the more people you have the better it is,” Forren said. “If the elections are the expression of what people want, the more people that participate, the closer it is to ideal.”

An increase in early voting was always anticipated, Bucaro said, because of the popularity of the process, but there are likely a couple of factors that attribute to what Bucaro calls a “significant increase.”

Four years ago, Ohio voters had 35 days to cast an early vote before Ohio lawmakers in 2014 eliminated the co-called "Golden Week" that cut the practice of registering to vote and voting on the same day during the first week of early voting. Early voting now begins the day after voter registration ends.

All of the poll worker training is conducted on-site, which helps early voting numbers. Poll workers, who wouldn’t be able to cast a ballot on Election Day can vote early before or after their training. Between 1,200 and 1,500 poll workers are trained in any given election.

Right now, Bucaro is projecting roughly 175,000 of the registered 248,000 Butler County voters to cast a ballot. Nearly 171,200 votes were cast in 2012 and more than 175,100 votes were cast in 2008.

Cedarville University political science professor Mark C. Smith sees a few things driving early voting numbers.

“First, it is a close election at the moment in Ohio, so people have more incentive to participate,” he said. “Second, both sides have made the argument that a defeat spells doom. They have defined their opponents in such a way that a loss is intolerable.”

Another issue driving early voting is just about everyone knows these two candidates. Both have been in the public eye for decades.

“In a sense, after the first debate, there was little to ‘learn’ about these candidates,” Smith said.

About the Author