With three weeks remaining until Election Day, some local counties say the volume of early voting is ahead of previous years, even without weekend or evening voting hours. In the first eight voting days, more than 45,000 people voted early in seven Miami Valley counties -- Montgomery, Greene, Miami, Warren, Clark, Champaign, Butler counties.

Steve Harsman, deputy director of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, said Monday that since absentee voting began Oct. 2, his office has seen more than 6,000 people cast in-person ballots, with another 12,000-plus submitting mail ballots – the highest first-two-weeks turnout the county has ever seen. On top of those 18,000, another 32,000 requested mail ballots but have yet to return them.

In Miami County, 1,463 in-person ballots had been cast by midday Monday, a total that County BOE Director Steve Quillen said is higher than at this point in past years and may be driven by delays on Election Day 2008.

“People are coming in earlier to vote after the last presidential election, when we had two- to four-hour lines,” Quillen said. “It’s not overwhelming, but it’s nice and steady.”

Miami County has not yet seen the overwhelming mail ballot response as in Montgomery County. Of the 7,901 mail ballot requests in Miami County, only 44 had been returned and processed as of Monday.

In Greene County, in-person early voting is actually down from 2008, with 2,674 ballots cast, according to BOE deputy director Llyn McCoy. But that may be offset by the mail vote. McCoy said requests for mail ballots are up this year, at 12,719. So far, 1,029 of those mail ballots have been completed and returned to the BOE.

Warren County had received 2,065 in-person votes and 6,767 completed mail ballots as of Monday morning. BOE deputy director Brian Sleeth said that mail number could soar, as another 13,000 mail ballots have been requested, and the second wave of ballot applications from the Secretary of State’s office is going out this week.

In Clark County, more than 6,400 have already voted in person or by mail. In the 2008 election, the county had 9,000 in-person early ballots cast in the office and more than 8,400 local ballots were mailed. Champaign County has already had 2,845 voters cast ballots by mail or in person, over half of the final total for 2008.

In heavily Republican Butler County, 3,960 have voted early in person and 24,875 have been mailed ballots.

In-person absentee voting for the Nov. 6 election continues this week, with all county Boards of Election open from 8 a.m. through 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The final two weeks of voting, starting Monday, Oct. 22, will have hours of 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays.

It is still unclear whether Ohioans will be able to vote on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before Election Day. Two federal courts have upheld that right, but Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Harsman said Montgomery County still has to process its last 4,000 voter registration applications that were filled out by last Tuesday’s deadline, a task he said should be finished by Saturday.

He urged voters who are unsure about their registration to check their status via their county Board of Elections website, or call their BOE office as soon as possible. The deadline to register to vote was Oct. 9.

Harsman said the Montgomery County BOE also got 40 or 50 phone calls from voters who applied to receive absentee ballots by mail, but did not get them. The BOE is following up with the U.S. Postal Service to isolate the problem, but Harsman said Ohio law permits those voters to get a replacement ballot.

“We’ll issue them a new ballot with a new stub number, and we’ll put it into our records to ensure that only one of the ballots is counted,” Harsman said. “There are safeguards in the process.”

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