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Close to 30% of county voters hit polls early

By David Skolnick 3 min read

With polling locations opened today, nearly 30% of registered voters in Trumbull and Mahoning counties already voted early in-person or by mail.

The early turnout numbers for the two counties are a little lower than the state percentage.

In Ohio, 2,532,260 people had voted of the 8,159,898 that are registered, according to statistics provided Monday afternoon by the Ohio secretary of state. That's 31%.

In Mahoning County, 29.8% of voters cast early ballots either in-person or by mail while 28.9% did so in Trumbull County as of Monday afternoon.

In-person voting was a more popular method than by mail.

In Ohio, 1,536,778 people voted in person as of Monday afternoon while 1,147,634 requested mail ballots with 995,482 returning them as of Monday afternoon. The statewide mail return rate is 87% as of Monday afternoon.

In Mahoning County, 48,608 of 163,093 registered voters cast early ballots either by mail or in-person while 39,820 of the 137,685 registered voters in Trumbull County did so as of Monday afternoon.

In Mahoning, 28,703 people voted early in-person with 23,585 requesting mail ballots and 19,905 returning them as of Monday afternoon.

That 84% return rate for mail ballots is tied with Lawrence for the fifth lowest among Ohio's 88 counties.

That is likely because an issue with a vendor caused a significant delay for some Mahoning County voters to get their ballots by mail.

Statistics show that 190 people canceled their mail ballot requests since Friday. They either voted early in-person or will vote today at their polling locations.

In Trumbull, 22,345 voted early in-person with 19,433 mail ballot requests and 17,475 returned by Monday afternoon.

The 90% return rate for mail ballots in Trumbull is among the highest in the state. Belmont is first at 92% followed by seven counties at 91% and then 11 counties, including Trumbull, at 90%.

Polling locations are open 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. today. No voting will take place at the county boards of elections. Voters must go to their polling location to cast a ballot.

Mail ballots had to be postmarked by Monday and must arrive at county boards of elections no later than Saturday, four days after the election, to be counted.

Voters also can put their ballots in drop boxes at county boards of elections or hand deliver them to the board by 7:30 p.m. tonight.

As for who voted early, those not affiliated with a political party are more than the total number of Republicans and Democrats combined in Ohio.

In the state, 1,376,856 unaffiliated voters voted early as of Monday afternoon compared to 707,741 Republicans, 447,656 Democrats and seven Libertarians.

In Mahoning County, only 468 more unaffiliated voters had cast early ballots as of Monday afternoon compared to the combined total of Democrats and Republicans.

Overall, 24,538 unaffiliated voters voted early compared to 12,364 Democrats and 11,706 Republicans in Mahoning.

While more unaffiliated voters in Trumbull County voted early than Democrats or Republicans, it wasn't more than the two political parties combined.

There were 17,953 unaffiliated early votes as of Monday afternoon in Trumbull compared to 11,444 Democrats and 10,423 Republicans.

Starting at /week.