COLUMBUS – On the eve of Election Day, the Secretary of State’s Office announced Ohio voters broke an all-time record for early voting in the statewide Gubernatorial General Election with 1,550,440 million Ohioans requesting an absentee ballot or casting their ballot early in-person. This is an increase of 3.9 percent over the previous record set in 2018. Data includes all ballots received and processed through 2:00pm on Monday afternoon.
Early In-Person: Driving the record utilization of early voting opportunities were early in-person voters. 549,771 Ohioans have voted early in-person in this election, compared to 429,521 at the same point in 2018. Ohio voters enjoy nearly 200 hours of early in-person voting opportunities.
Absentee Ballot Requests: Absentee ballot requests overall showed a 5.8 percent decrease over 2018, with 1,000,669 requests received by county boards of elections statewide. As of the last report on Monday afternoon, 154,042 outstanding absentee ballots had not yet been returned to a county board of elections. Absentee ballots must be postmarked by today, November 7 or delivered in person to the voter’s respective county board of elections by 7:30 p.m. on November 8, so expect the outstanding number of absentee ballots to change by close of polls.
Total Ballots Cast: According to the most recent data provided to the Secretary of State’s Office by the 88 county boards of elections, the total number of early votes cast passed the previous record set in 2018 by 6 percent. Additional analysis shows absentee ballot returns are also outpacing the 2018 gubernatorial election, with 842,996 absentee ballots so far returned to county boards of elections (84.2 percent in 2022 vs 83.3 percent in 2018).
All absentee ballots received by the county board of elections by the close of polls on November 8 will be included in the unofficial vote totals released on election night. Outstanding ballots that are postmarked by November 7 and received by the county board of elections within 10 days after the election will be included in the final official results that are released in late November. Every properly cast ballot will be counted. Boards of Elections must contact and can help voters correct any issues with their respective ballot up until the 7th day after the election. The official canvass must be completed by each county by November 29, 2022. Upon a review of that canvass, the Ohio Secretary of State will certify and release the official results.