CLEVELAND — Voting turnout here in Cuyahoga County missed the mark on Election Day with numbers below the board of elections target of 70%. The county reported just over 603,000 cast ballots.
However, suburbs throughout the county did see record voter turnout numbers that were above 80%, including Bay Village and Independence. Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Director, Tony Perlatti, says it was Cleveland with 53% and East Cleveland with 46% turnout that brought down the county’s average voter participation numbers.
Perlatti says their biggest problem was the pandemic as many voters chose not to come out and vote. Ohio hit a new record on Election Day with more than 4,000 new COVID-19 cases, the largest single-day rise in cases since the pandemic started. In addition, Perlatti says changes at the polls didn't help, including curbside services made available.
“Sometimes those individuals say oh I don’t want to go to that location so they’ll stay in,” Perlatti explained.
Free rides were provided by numerous non-profits to help voters get to the polls, but not many took advantage.
“If a ride’s available and someone doesn’t want to take that maybe it comes back to hey with the pandemic I just want to stay in my home and I don’t want to participate,” said Perlatti.
Perlatti says long lines may have also played a part in turning away voters who may not have wanted to wait. Though, we’re told many of those lines were stretched further because of social distancing and a cut to the number of voting stations and equipment at dozens of polling sites.
The Election Day crowds we did see came mostly in the morning, but there was also an unexpected number of people who wanted to use curbside voting.
“One of the things we would probably have to do is come up with more resources,” Perlatti said. “But again trying to find that balance of not having it be a cut the line program and make sure that people who are waiting in line have an equal amount of waiting time.”
The Election Day crowds we did see came mostly in the morning, but there was also an unexpected number of people who wanted to use curbside voting.
Perlatti says if there’s another election and there’s still a need for extra safety measures like what was done during this pandemic, they will need to go back to the drawing board and request more resources.
“We’re going to have to do just a lot of analysis post-election on that to see what can we do differently but also seeing what happened to see what the secretary of state would he want to make some modifications to that plan.”
