We could consider it typical for a presidential election to see large numbers of people come through today. In fact, Ohio already set a record yesterday and Secretary Frank LaRose expects more voting records to be broken.
The polls in Ohio for the 2020 election opened at 6:30 a.m., but a record number of people already voted.
"3.4 million Ohioans having already cast their ballot really proves something that we've known for a long time," said Secretary of State Frank LaRose. "Ohio is a leader when it comes to early and absentee voting."
Ohio has never had more than 2 million early votes in an election. And that 3.4 million is 60 percent of all the Ohio votes cast in 2016's election. And those absentee ballots can still be counted if they were postmarked by November 2 or dropped off by 7:30 Tuesday night.
As for voting on Election Day, it's hard to say what to expect. The pandemic affected people voting in the primary, but that may not be the case now.
"We had a line when we came in at 6 o'clock with voters wanting to come in, thinking the polls opened at 6 (a.m.) instead of 6:30 (a.m.)," Judy Parks said, polling manager at Zion Lutheran Church. "So, we had a line before we even got set up."
Parks says typically there are large numbers that come in the morning of presidential elections. She says Tuesday morning saw a consistent wave of people that kept her polling site busy for the first five hours.
"I know we're one of the larger precincts in Allen County," said Parks. "So, you know, we - when we did our 10 o'clock we had over 400 voters."
One of the biggest discussions is when results will come in. Secretary LaRose gives Ohioans some peace of mind that they'll know something Tuesday night.
"At 7:31 we'll immediately begin to tabulate their ballots and the very first ballots counted in most cases will be those early and absentee ballots," LaRose said. "Our boards of elections have been processing those for weeks now. Now contrast that to some of our neighboring states like Pennsylvania and Michigan where they weren't even allowed to start cutting open envelopes until today. And in those states, they're going to have a delay."
With 8 million registered voters, LaRose expects the largest voter turnout in Ohio's history. As of last night, there were still over 240,000 absentee ballots not yet returned. Just remember the results Tuesday night are all unofficial. That's how it is every election and they will not be official for a few weeks.
