CLEVELAND — Twenty-four days after the November election, the final vote numbers are in. In all, nearly 6 million Ohioans voted this November, breaking the old record set in 2008 by 200,000 voters.
President Donald Trump became the first candidate to ever get more than 3 million votes in Ohio, adding another 80,000 to his total over the last three weeks.
“Whether your favorite candidate won or lost, Ohioans can trust that this result was accurate and honest,” said Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
The 2020 election was a record-breaking one on so many fronts in Ohio. True, the state’s long streak of picking every presidential winner since 1964 ended when President Trump won the state but lost the election, but final results released Friday show new records were set including:
- Most votes cast in an Ohio election: 5,974,121
- Highest turnout: 74%
- Highest percentage of early votes: 58.6%, compared to just 33.5% four years ago.
- A record 94% of all absentee ballots requested were returned.
Equally as impressive, LaRose said, were the number of ballots that were thrown out for errors — just .42%
“This is a remarkable accomplishment and something I think all Ohioans should be proud of,” LaRose said.
In all, 211,000 votes were added to the state’s election day totals over the last three weeks. In past presidential election years, those numbers reflected what’s been called a “blue shift” as Democrats either added to their leads or cut their losses. This year, however, the overtime count favored Trump by about 5,000 votes, which showed, unlike other states, a greater percentage of Ohio Republicans took part in early voting and were not swayed by the way it was used as a political tool elsewhere.
“In a presidential election, nearly everything gets politicized, but the good news story is that Ohioans didn’t take those to heart," LaRose said. "So there were attempts to politicize it, but Ohioans knew better.”
