CLEVELAND — Early voting continued Monday at Ohio's 88 Boards of Elections, with hours expanded this week. This follows a record weekend of in-person early voting. Cuyahoga County saw 3,488 people vote early Saturday, a 42.5% jump over the same day in 2020; Sunday saw a 47% jump.
The same is true in Summit County, where people reportedly waited up to two hours to vote.
"In comparison to last year, we're also seeing that kind of increase," said Paul Adams, Director of the Lorain County Board of Elections. He said many of those in-person voters are people who maybe voted in 2020 by mail, with those numbers lagging in 2020.
"So we're significantly down on mail voting," said Adams. "I really think that has a lot to do with the pandemic but a lot of people got used to voting early in person at the Board of Elections here and across the state and I think that's why we're seeing a large number of people that are coming out in person to vote early."
Weekday hours have expanded this week, with BOEs open for early voting from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The exception is Tuesday when they'll be open until 8:30 p.m., which is the deadline for applications to get into the Boards of Elections for those looking to vote early by mail.
That deadline was moved earlier as part of changes put in place by the legislature. The previous deadline was noon on the Saturday before the election, which did not allow employees enough time to process the request and have the ballot reach the voter by mail prior to Election Day.
"It is cutting it close to be candid," LaRose said of the new deadline. "And the old deadline that allowed people to wait until the very last minute was just completely nonsensical. If you get in your absentee ballot request your Board of Elections is going to turn it around right away."
As for voters who have received their vote by mail ballot, LaRose urges them to fill it out and send it in now.
"If it's sitting on your dashboard, if it's sitting on your kitchen counter don't wait any longer, return your absentee ballot, get it back to the county Board of Elections. You can go online and track that ballot to make sure your county Board of Elections receives it and that's at voteohio.gov/track."
As for early voting as a whole, LaRose said, "we're seeing in some counties historic numbers," LaRose said of the nearly 1.7 million ballots cast through mid-day Monday. "I think it's clear to see that Ohioans know they can trust early and absentee voting."
"Also it's worth pointing out that this is maybe a little surprising to some but Republicans currently outpace Democrats in early voting participation. Again that may not have historically been the case," said LaRose. "So that's an interesting thing for the political scientists to analyze."
"Early voting continues all the way until Sunday before Election Day," he said. "Most states do not offer weekend early voting. I think there's only five other states in the country that offer Sunday afternoon early voting."
BOEs will be open on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and from Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Remember there is no longer early voting in person on the day before the election Monday. That was eliminated to allow the Boards more time to prepare.
"Traditionally those weekend early voting days do tend to be higher turnout days and so you may end up seeing a line on the weekends. If you don't want to do that then come vote Tuesday or Wednesday of Thursday."
Back in Lorain County, Adams also urged voters to double-check the ID they plan on showing when they vote.
"You have to have a photo ID now so take a moment to look at your ID to make sure it's not expired because if you have an expired ID it's not going to work. You have a little bit of time to take care of that but check your ID before you come to the Board of Elections and make sure it's not expired."
