COLUMBUS, Ohio—(AVC News)–We are heading into the final days of early, in-person voting ahead of the November 3rd mid term elections.
Reports from across the country indicate that early voting is surging ahead of election day.
States such as Main, North Carolina and here in Ohio early voting is up roughly 30%, while Texas is reporting an increase of nearly 75%.
At last check, the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office is reporting over 1.3 million ballots have been requested, both absentee and in-person. For the 2024 November General Election there were 2.7 million total ballots requested..
Voters will decide the fate of a number of contested races on the state and federal level as well as some local races, levies, issues and questions.
In addition, Ohioans will be selecting Ohio’s next major statewide office holders, including governor, lt governor, secretary of state, auditor and treasurer, as well as voicing their opinion on State Issue 3.
Reports say, leading into the final full week of early voting, nearly 1.4 million Ohio voters had requested absentee mail-in ballots or voted early in person, a 67% increase from 2022 – the last midterm and gubernatorial election.
Across the county, more than 30 million Americans have voted in this year’s midterms so far. Nationally, early votes are roughly even between in-person (15.4 million) and mail (15.1 million). According to the Ohio early voting dashboard, the numbers are also about evenly split. As of October 26, roughly 53% of the 1,357,942 ballots requested in Ohio were absentee ballots.
Board of Election Offices, state wide will be holding special hours for last minute in-person voting.
Friday, October 30; 7:30 am until 7:30 pm
Saturday; 8 am until 4 pm
Sunday; 1 pm until 5 pm
Early in-person voting ends at 5 pm on Sunday November 1.
As a reminder, absentee ballots must be received by your local board of elections, by mail, hand delivered or placed in their drop box by the close of polls on election day to be counted.
There is no longer a grace period in Ohio.
