Brunner Announces Absentee Ballot Numbers

Today Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner announced key statistics on absentee ballots, early voting, and anticipated turnout. Highlights:

* Through October 24th, 221,368 Ohioans requested in-person absentee ballots and 1,234,996 requested mail-in absentee ballots – an unprecendented total of 1,456,364 absentee ballot requests. (This is the first presidential election in which any Ohio voter can request an absentee ballot without a reason.)

* Brunner expects "historic" voter turnout of 80%, or 6,480,000 Ohio voters, and anticipates absentee ballots could account for up to 1/3 of those voters. To date, absentee ballot requests represent 22.5% of that anticipated turnout.

* During the one-week "overlap" period for same-day in-person registration and voting, 652,875 absentee ballots were requested, of which 585,467 were mail-in and 67,408 were in-person. However, only about 12,800 of Ohioans requesting in-person absentee ballots also registered on the same day.

The highest turnout precentage in any prior presidential election (since 1977 when such percentages became available) was 77.15% in 1992. The turnout in 2004 was 71.77%.

If Brunner is right about turnout and if a third of those voters will have voted early, that means that the number of people actually walking into polling places on November 4th will be about 4,290,000. Judging by this chart, that appears to be fewer Election Day voters than any presidential election since 1980, perhaps even 1977 (depending on how many people voted absentee in prior years, when a valid reason for doing so was required).