close
close

Early voting in Summit County has ended. How did it compare to 2020?

Posted on by Kennedy
Early voting in Summit County has ended. How did it compare to 2020?

Summit County saw high voter turnout in early voting for the 2024 election — but despite all the long lines and waits, the election board said it wasn't a record holder.

According to the absentee voting report on the Summit County Board of Elections website, 113,100 people voted early between Oct. 8 and Sunday. Pete Zeigler, executive vice president, said operations ran smoothly during the 26 days early voting was available.

Of the early voters, 60,431 voted by mail, 48,455 voted at the Early Vote Center, 1,911 voted curbside and 47 took their ballots with them – the so-called “hand carry.”

In the 2020 general election, which took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, 160,037 people cast votes within 26 days of early voting – primarily by mail.

Summit County election officials kept the Early Vote Center open late Sunday, the last day of early voting, to accommodate the last group of early voters in the county.

“Anyone who was in line for early voting at five o’clock last night was allowed to vote,” said Pete Zeigler, deputy director of the board. Some voters waited two hours to cast their votes, he said, adding: “Some people were waiting here as early as 11 a.m. and we didn't open until 1 a.m.”

Some people hoping to vote Monday morning were told they would have to wait until Tuesday, he said. Several others came in throughout the afternoon.

What do these numbers mean for candidates who were not elected?

J. Cherie Strachan, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics and a professor of political science at the University of Akron, said it's hard to say what these early voting numbers mean for non-presidential candidates because of Republicans' shifting tactics.

She previously said, “We would have said this was an advantage for the Democrats” because former President Donald Trump tried to discourage people from voting early.

Strachan said Republicans have realized that such messaging puts them at a disadvantage and pointed out that Republicans are now encouraging early voting.

“I’m not sure I would draw as many conclusions from this as I have in previous election cycles,” she said.

What should voters conclude from all the polls?

The Bliss Institute recently released a poll showing Trump leading Democratic nominee for Vice President Kamala Harris in Ohio by 7%, and Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown in a dead heat to retain his seat against the Republican Keep rival Bernie Moreno.

Support for Trump is above the 2.8% margin of error, Strachan said, “which leaves us relatively confident about these results.”

However, that doesn't mean the survey is infallible.

“If you take a random sample and use it to estimate or generalize to the larger population, there is still a chance that your random sample will be completely wrong. But the chances of it being wrong are pretty high,” Strachan said.

Opinion research is as much art as science. She explained that the trick is for pollsters to put their knowledge of past elections into action.

“It's always kind of an art form to consider which demographic groups have been very motivated to vote in the past, and then – given the electoral context and the current issues being raised – and who was very enthusiastic or upset – who it is “We're probably going to be voting in this election and we're going to have to figure out how to accurately determine the weighting,” Strachan said.

“Every pollster has to use their knowledge and insight into voters’ past behavior” to decide which populations to poll, Strachan said, “and that’s why you’re going to see some variation in the polls.”

What do the surveys not take into account?

There are two big things that polls don't take into account, Strachan said: voter enthusiasm and the strength of a candidate's down-to-earth nature.

In the case of the dead heat between Moreno and Brown, for example, the candidate's local campaign will make the difference, which is not measured in public opinion polls.

A candidate's ability to mobilize voters to vote makes the difference in close races, Strachan said.

“You can take a random sample, you can use past behavior to make predictions about demographic groups, but given the noise of the entire election, it's really difficult to figure out who is most motivated to vote until we actually see it Strachan said.

Contact reporter Derek Kreider at [email protected] or 330-541-9413

Related Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *