Ohio voters cast more than 1.7 million ballots early, surpassing 2022 totals

Ohioans cast more than 1.7 million ballots early this year, either in person, through the mail, or a drop box. That total is 17% higher than the early vote total for the last midterm election in 2022.

Democratic voters outpaced Republicans slightly — casting roughly 468,000 ballots to the GOP’s 432,000. Unaffiliated voters, being the vast majority of Ohio voters, swamped them both, with nearly 807,000 ballots.

The distribution of those votes looks pretty different than it did just four years ago.

In 2022, voters cast absentee ballots through the mail or a drop box at a nearly 2-to-1 rate. In that election, 918,333 Ohioans voted by mail compared with roughly 550,092 who showed up early in person.

This year, that relationship has nearly flipped. Almost 1.1 million voters showed up in person at the county board, while only 632,254 Ohioans voted at their mailbox.

That trend persists at the county level, too. Comparing the final tallies between 2022 and 2026, every county reported an increase in voters showing up to vote early in-person.

In nearly a third of Ohio counties, the 2026 figure was double or more than the early in-person total from 2022. At the same time, no county matched its mail voting totals from the last election.

Cuyahoga County came closest to meeting its 2022 mail voting totals. The nearly 107,000 ballots voters returned amounts to 78.29% of the number returned in 2022.

The biggest fall off was in deep-southern Ohio’s Lawrence County. Voters there mailed in just 57% as many ballots as they did in 2022. Meanwhile, Lawrence’s early in person vote increased more than three-fold — the biggest jump in the state.

The shift away from mail voting is significant but perhaps not that surprising.

University of Akron political scientist David Cohen chalked it up to President Trump railing against mail voting “for the last 20 months.”

“He has tried to put in place things with the U.S. Postal Service that will make it, potentially more difficult for people to vote by mail, or may put their ballots at risk if they do end up voting,” Cohen said.

The president’s effort to leverage the postal service was ultimately turned away by the U.S. Supreme Court. Center of Election Innovation and Research Executive Director David Becker praised that decision in September.

“These rules would have done nothing for election integrity,” he said, “but would have imposed a vast and expensive new bureaucracy on the states, given massive new responsibilities to a Postal Service already overwhelmed by its current core responsibilities, and disenfranchised thousands if not millions of eligible voters.”

Also, in the lead-up to this election, Ohio lawmakers nixed the state’s absentee ballot grace period, meaning any ballots arriving after Election Day will not be counted.

How to vote now

Despite a significant uptick in early voting this election cycle, there are still millions of Ohioans who have yet to cast a ballot.

If you plan to vote in person on Election Day, you can find your polling place through your county board of elections; this tool on the Ohio Secretary of State’s website will get you there quickly.

Also, don’t forget to bring along an unexpired, approved photo ID, like a driver’s license, military ID, or U.S. passport.

According to Ohio Secretary of State data, more than 104,000 Ohioans who requested an absentee ballot haven’t returned it yet. If you’re one of those voters, you shouldn’t put your ballot in the mail. Instead, your best bet is to bring your ballot to your county board of elections on Election Day. To be counted, all absentee ballots must to be in the hands of county election officials by 7:30 pm on Election Day.

Voters who previously requested a mail ballot but show up to vote on Election Day anyway, will have to vote provisionally, to ensure only one ballot gets counted.

If you put your ballot in the mail already, you can track it here.

Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Nick Evans on X or on Bluesky.